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THE 


POETICAL WORKS 


OF 


- DAVID HITCHCOCK. 


CONTAINING, 


7 


THE SHADE OF PLATO, KNIGHT AND 
QUACK, AND THE SUBTLETY 


2 -OF FOXES, 3° 
) oa? Je ie ‘ 


» Gee e ® . ies ni og 
fe ante ne tonnes “i mmerennememneene  ehemmaesenapanniiitinrtiipitel 
——— LN 


BOSTON : 


PUBLISHED B¥ ETHERIDGE AND BLISS) 
No. 12, CORNHILL, 
- 1806. 


——— + Gee 


OLIVER & MUNROE, PRINTERS, 


Gx 


ae mentioned, the loss of 
réciation of the paper currency of those 

3s, which rendered him almost helpless, 

years of his life; and the insanity of his 
Lovammencing at that time, has afflicted her at- 
wr aince. <4) 
es A 


MISSOLS | 


4 


SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 


Tue Publisher of the following Poem, pursuant to 
his engagements with the public, has obtained from the 
Author, some particulars of his Life and circumstances, 
which are here given, from documefits furnished by 
himself. . 

Davip Hitcncocx, the Author of the following 
Poem, was born at Bethlem, County of Litchfield, State 
of Connecticut, in the year 1773. His father, who was 
an honest and industriousshoemaker, after being reduced - 
by aseries of misfortunes,* to the lowest state of poverty 
and wretchedness, died in the year 1790; leaving six 
children, of whom our author was the eldest, and a weak- 
ly and bereaved widow, sopeesene upon.the world for 
protection and support. His inability to educate his 
children will readily be peredived ; but as_the eldest dis- 


* Amongst these misfortunes, may be mentioned, the loss of 
about £ 1000 by the depreciation of the paper currency of those 
times ; his own sickness, which rendered him almost helpless, 
during the three last years of his life; and the insanity of his 
wife, which, commencing at that time, has afflicted her at - 


“intervals ever since. ; 
‘ A 


MIS8O15— 


Iv SKETCH OF THE 

covered an early disposition to learn, he spared bic pains 
togratify it, both by eneirunas him, and sending him to 
school, (when want of ney or clothing did not pre- 
vent) from the fifth to the thirteenth year of his age. 
By these pte privileges, our author acquired enough of 
the rudiments of learning to enable him to make further 
improvements by his own application, at subsequent 
periods of his life. He bean the practice of scribbling, 
which was his favorite amusement, very early. Some 
of his first productions were paraphrases on the thirty- 
ninth Psalm; the latter part of the first chapter of 
Luke ; and others of a serious complexion. These he 
composed principally in the night, while watching with 
his father in his last sickness. Reasons might be addu- 
_ ced to show, why he has hitherto generally made relig- 
ious subjects his theme ; but they are deemed irrelevant. 
It is sufficient to say, that he was induced to make 
religion his study, and to investigate, as much as lay in his 
power, the principles. on which it was founded. For this 
purpose, he carefully examined the Bible, and other seri- 
ous books, and attended public worship and religious 


conferences, when it did not interfere with his employ- 


AUTHOR’S LIFE. vO 
ment at home. By these means the study became 
habitual, and his thoughts were directed to objects which, 
Silas did not seem to sient sufficient charms to draw 
his attention; and though this little work was not writ- 
ten until several years after, yet he attributes to his early 
impressions, the choice of a religious topic.  , 

After the death of his father, our author went to. live 
with one.ofthe selectmen of the town, to work at farm- 
ing, and continued with him five months. He then 
chose a guardian, with whom he lived fourteen months ; 
and afterwards, by his own request, was bound by his 
guardian to a shoemaker to learn his trade more perfect- 
ly. He continued in his service, however, but sixteen 
months ; and then left him, by compromise, and returned 
to his guardian, where he remained until he completed 
the twentieth year of his age. While he lived in these 
families, he found it difficult to overcome the prejudices 
which they had previously imbibed against him. His 
dependence and singularity made it almost bn twésible 
for him to do any thing acceptable ; and though the man 
to whom he was bound appeared to be satisfied with his 


services, and but seldom reprimanded him, yet the others 


vi SKETCH OF THE 
displayed considerable ingenuity in finding occasions 
toblame him. His failings were coloured with a worse 
construction than they ought, in justice, to have borne ; 
and when his conduct was such as to command their ap- 
probation, they contrasted it with the rest, to justify them- 
selves for the unmerciful scourges which he received 
from their tongues, 
These circumstances gave him reasol frequently to 
deplore the loss of his fathers He felt his dependent 
situation ; exposed to the abuse of unfeeling overseers ; 
a being of too little consequence to gain the friendship of 
his neighbours ; and if he complained to his relations of 
his treatment, he found that they had been seasonably 
prepossessed, by misrepresentation of his conduct. Yet 
he was unconscious of meriting such treatment, by any 
willing departure from his duty ; and though he might, 
by ignorance, or inadvertence, sometimes deserve their 
displeasure, still, as he never recieved the average sum 
of one dollar per month (exclusive of board) for thirty- | 
four months work, he could not accuse himself, on the 
whole, of being in the least degree prejudicial to their 


mterests. 


AUTHOR'S LIFE, - PH 
Atthe age of twenty years, our author,having been ban- 
died about, and treated with indifference by his acquaint: | 
ances, began to think of looking out for himself. Ac- 
cordingly, after informing his guardian of his attentions, 
and working three er four months in Washington, Con- 
necticut, he went to West Stockbridge, in Massachusetts. 
The first stated wages hereceived for his work at his trade, 
was three dollars and thirty three cents oe month ; but 
ashe worked as a journeyman at several shops, his wages. 
increased, in a few months, tofifty shillings, New England 
currency. ‘These earnings he laid out in purchasing 
clothing to supply the place of a few rags, ee at that. 
_ time, had become very unfashionable apparel for persons 
of his age. After he had supplied himself with decent 
clothing, he had the good fortune, by hie diligence, to 
acquire a few dollars beforehand; but as-he was ignorant 
of the intrigues of the world, his little surplus. was soon 
filched from him by insidious jockies, who knew better 
how to get it than he did to keep it. He soon after went 
to Great Barrington, in Massachusetts, where he has 
resided ever since; and though he has been as diligent in 


AQ 


THE 
SHADE OF PLATO: | 


OR, 


A DEFENCE OF 


f 


RELIGION, MORALITY. AND. GOVERNMENT..- , 


A POEM, oor 


™N FOUR PARTS. 


“F —— 


CONTENTS. 


Fie oi 
THE design of the Vision—Statement of the general com. 
plaints against Providence, for the calamities incident to 
human life—Said to be inflicted for the vices of men ; which 
are fatal to them. in consequence of the Fall—Reply 
to the above statement, That men have no right to arraign 
the Almighty—That most of the afflictions of life, they 
bring on themselves, by their imprudence, or discontent— 
That human wishes, if gratified, would afford no greater 
happiness than the race now enjoy—That miseries which can. 
not be evaded by prudence and economy, are indispensably , 
necessary, to make men feel their dependence on the Al- 
mighty. 
PART II. 


QUESTION, Why the Fall of man was permitted ?—Reply, 
That the justice of other events, in which men do not feel 
interested, might be asked with the same propriety—-That 
the justice of God is not to be questioned till men can prove 
that he has erred, or till they are equal to him in wis- 
dom and power—That his designs are to man unknown, 
though sin is in the world, and of course death ; not only of 
man, butofall the visible parts of creation—That man has - 
no right to complain till he can prove that he is more desery- 

_ ing than the rest of the creatures of God—That the conduct 
of men sanctions the justice of the miseries‘which they en- 
dure—That their existence had been no better, if the fall 
had never been permitted ; nor in such case, do they know 
that they ever haa existed, or any thing which God has cre- 
ated besides—That the system, as it is,is best, though its 
ultimate end is beyond human comprehension—That if 
human reason is dissatisfied with the permission of sin and 
death, it must examine the universe throughout, and rectify 
every seeming disorder that exists—That upon this ground, 
the whole system of nature is as worthy of human censure, 
as the fall of man, or the miseries which are produced by it— 


Xiv Tay CONTENTS. 


That it would not benefit mankind, to have all the mysteries 

of nature revealed ; the origin of evil especially ; they would 
not own God’s justice, or be more resigned to his Prov. 

dence—That his goodness is manifest—That reason teaches 

his existence and government, and inculcates universal sub- 

mission ; the end of creation, his glery ; earth, the appointed 

residence of man; duty, his field of action; no mystery 

found therein ; nor may he go out in search of them, for God 

is not obliged to reveal them+-That the scriptures are a rey- 

elation of all needful truths—That though men are dissatis- 

fied, the system is unalterable—That resignation is most 
advisable. . 


PART III. 


QUESTION, How blame can exist in the system, ifthe whole 
is so completely organized ?—Reply, That though moral 
evil does certainly exist, it cannot be said to originate from 
God—That there can be no amendment to the constitution 
of nature ; since the whole was planned by infinite wisdom— 
That man, with his external parts, and internal qualities, 
is a necessary being ‘to fill a certain. sphere in creation, 
which must have been vacant, had he been differently creat- 
ed—That the properties of man are all essentially requisite 
to gain an honest subsistence, and perform the social and 
sacred duties of life—That he is not obliged to prostitute 
them, though he has opportunity—That human frailty, 
and a liability to err, introduced motives from whence the 
depravity of man first originated—That no natyral means 
could hive prevented their effect—That supernatural exer- 
tion would-have subverted man’s free agency, and annihilat- 
ed the idea of praise or blame worthiness—That the mutual 
benefit which man would be to the system, outweighed, 
in the Creator’s mind,the evils that would accrue from his 
moral derangement ; both of which he must have known be- 
fore the creation took place—That as man is endowed with 
reason to distinguish, and ability to -practise, virtue or vice ; 
he must necessarily be a subject of God’s moral government, 
and responsible to him for his conduct—That his power or 
duty is not contracted bythe fall—That his actions appar- 
ently proceed from voluntary choice—That if they do not, 
all punishment therefor would be arbitrary and unjust— 
Question, Whether punishment, as well as crimes may not 
be ordained ?—Reply, That if they are, God’s government 
"over men isa continued scene of oppression and cruelty— 
That the feeble light of reason may discern to the contrary—_ 
That were men compelled they would feel no guilt for the 


CONTENTS. . RV 


greatest erimes, or strive to conceal them when they were 
committed—That if man’s power or duty is abridged, it dis- 
cards the ideas of virtue or vice—That of course it is no 
matter how quick the barriers of society are broken down 
and men overwhelmed by their own depravity—That the 
foreknowledge of God, and the freedom of man may both 
exist, though reason cannot comprehend their connection— 
That if men are free in their actions, they are subordinate to 
law, and should be cautious how they implicate the justice: 
of God—That the word of God is the rule of life—Question, 
what makes it preferable to reason—Reply, the same that 
makes light preferable to darkness—That reason alone is in- 
sufficient to teach men éither their duty or the true knowledge 
of their Creator—Examples noticed both ancient and'mod- 
ern, of its Ceficiency and variation, in the Indies, China, Tar- 
tary, Egypt, and Persia—Brief representation of the doctrine 
of polytheism—That this, though tolerated by reason, was un- 
doubtedly wrong. 


PART IV. 


QUESTIONS, Whether belief in any God is necessary if mea 
are honest, and do not disturb the peace of the public—Re- 
ply, That all duty, or moral obligation, originates from a 
sense of being accountable to a Supreme Being—That this 
defends society from the encroachments of vice, without 
which, the intervention of human governments would prove 
ineffectual—That social intercourse would soon be dissolved, 
were a Goc to be universally denied—That it is left (ifno 
God in fact does exist) for the human race.to be exterminat- 
ed ; since they all complain of the miseries of life—That 
men are wilfully blind, who deny te rays of Divinity that 
appear within the hemisphere of reason—That the traces of 
a God are discerned in every visible operation—All nations, 
in all ages, have believed in divine esergy ; though they 
have differed respecting the manner of its existence—That 
though this faith is clearly ascertained, it is ebjured by the 
disciples of reason,as the principal source of bigotry and op. 
pression—Their principles examined—Intentious exposed— 
What happiness (as they pretend) will redound to society 
from their prosecution—That human nature must be chang- 
ed béfore mankind can be thus made happy, which is a task 
too great for philosophers to accomplish—That pride, preju- 
dice,and local attachments, will continue, in spite of their pre- 
tended ‘endeavours to destroy them—That property cannot 
be equalized, or distinction annihilated —That the political 
state of the world: cannot be made uniform—That the bal- 


“B 


XV CONTENTS. 


ance of power will-continue to vibrate on account of the jar- 
ring interests by which the different nations of the world are 
governed—That despotic rights will produce revolutions : 
states thereby emancipate from oppression ; erect popular 
governments ; which (though most eligible) will soon grow 
corrupt very gradually to tyranny ; and thence to declension 
and ruinThat the political course of all nations has hitherto 
been attended with revolutions and changes—That popular 
discentent, and licentiousness have prevailed in proportion 
to the liberty which individuals have enjoyed ; till liberal 
governments have been deranged, and compelled to yield to 
regal authority ; which, for secular purposes, has sanctioned 
the grossest errors to silence poptlar clamor, and to es- 
tablish an exclusive title to power and dominion—That thus 
every system of human government has been perverted by 
the lusts, and vices of men—That these first made their ex- 
istence necessary—That they have been the cause of oppres- 
sion ; and notfreligion or government, as philosophers pre- 
tend—That societies cannot exist without restraint till men 
possess a more benevolent disposition—That hence it must 
be the suppression of licentiousness, instead of liberty that 
produces such disaffection to laws and religion—That this 
has been the means of shedding much blood, and yet has 
produced no change for the better: In consideration of 
which the nations of the earth are exhorted to beware of rev- 
olutionizing principles, andthe propagators of them to re- ~ 
peste themselves ere they undertake to regenerate the 
world. - 


SHADE OF PLATO. 


PART FIRST. 


’ 


W ue Pheebus from the human race 

Hid the bright splendor of his face, 

And, from the seat of darkness, hurl’d 

A sable mantle o’er the world : ¢ 

While men from toil repose obtain’d, 

And universal titedeg reign’d ; 

The ghost of an immortal sage, 

Who flourish’d in the Grecian age, 

Sudden into my presence broke, 

And thus the radient vision: spoke : 
Stranger, forbear, be not dismay’d 5 

I’m PLaTo’s once departed Shade 3 

Who, from celestial spheres recede, 

The righteous cause of Heav’n to plead ; 

And clear its justice, truth, and grace 


¢ 


From the aspersions of your race. 


- 


tee ‘ © @ Pe. 
@ c- & i © & Oe@0 @ ane 


is SHADE OF PLATO. 
O’er earth, where’er a God is knowns 

Mankind, their destiny bemban ; — 

They all some specious pretext frame, _ 

To tax kind Providence with blame ; 

‘ Each think the Deity they serve 
Chastises more than they deserve ; 
And that their sufferings here below 
Are one despotic scene of wo. 

In Christian land, where gespe light 
Iumes the intellectual sight, 

Oft have I heard your race repine, 
That they’re abus’d by power divine ; 
That they’re depriv’d of happiness, 
Because their parents did amiss : 
That their Existence; here below, 

Is but a pilgrimage of wo ; 

For which the hapless race of men 
Are subject to disease, and pain ; 
And when their days on earth are past, 
Must feel the pangs of death at last : 
That since the first unrighteous deed, 


Mankind, thro’ every age, must bleed ; 


SHADE ©F PLATO. 19 


1 


And be clandestinely devour’d, 
By famine, pestilence, and sword : 
That man, had not it been for this, ~ 
Had revell’d in eternal bliss; _ 
‘And free from sickness, death, or pain, 
- Would now in paradise remain ; _ 
That since their sire was thus derang’d, 
The laws of nature have been chang’d ; 
And counterwork their pristine plan, 
To scourge the feeble race of man ; 
Whence they’re to every wo betray’d, 
For crimes which they could not evade : 
Oft, they inquire the cause they’ve given 
_ Thus to be made the sport of heaven ; | 
a@nd why its vengeance should assail 
A race so impotent and frail. 
Wherefore, in this presumptuous strain, 
Do men their Maker thus arraign ; 
And with such unbecoming lays 
Question the justice of his ways; 
While, in their hearts, they all accede 


To crimes that to these miseries lead ? 
BQ 


20 ss SHADE OF PLAT@. 

Are mortals, by a power sublime, 

Push’d forward into every ee ? 

Or, can they, with the greatest ease, 
Withstand thelr passions, if they please ; , 
And, ere they gain the upper hand, | 

Subject them under due command ? 

Do not your race sufficient know 
To mitigate this tide of wo ; : 

To practice what is just and good, 

And be more happy, if they would ? 

Were those abandon’d sons of Greece,* 
_Who grac’d their haughty monarch’s feast ; 
‘Fore’d by an‘agency divine 

To kill themselves by drinking wine ? 


* It is storied, that Alexander, at a banquet which he had» 
prepared for his principal officers, proposed a crown as a re- 
ward for any one of the company who would drink the most. - 
Promachus, who drank eighteen pints, was the successful com- 
petitor, but he outlived his victory only three days ; and of the 
rest of the guests about forty perished by this act of intemper- : 
ance. Such scenes of extravagance frequently occur ; yet it 
is levelling the character of the Almighty to that of a Merry 
Andrew, or mountebank, to say that he delights in, and encour- 
“ages them, which must he the caseif he enforces their com- 
mission, =‘ 


‘SHADE OF PLATO. ‘2: 

Did not their reason then declare, ; 
That thus they would their health impair; 
And that, unless they did recede, 
That they must perish in the deed ? 
Do not men forge those galling chains, 
Of which the race at large idihepladsin ; 
And by imprudence of their own, 
Oft pull the heaviest judgments down ? 
Are they not universal foes : 
To each allotment heaven bestows ? 
And does it not their feelings goad, 
To follow virtue’s pleasant road ; 
Which free from labyrinths of doubt, 
Points happiness and duty out ? | 
Do not their passions, like a dream, 
Drag them thro’ every wild extreme ; 
And to excesses lead them on, 
Till they are oftentimes undone ? 

Are not mankind, in happiest place, ‘ 
A discontented murmuring race ; 
Who, with convenience at their door, 7 


Feel. vext, if fortune gives no more? 


32 SMADE OF PLATO. 
Or, if she favors their caprice ; | 

Do not unnumber’d wants increase ? 
And does not each, ina gratified, 
Give the next hope, a double stride ; 
Till man arrives, by swift degrees, 
To covet every thing he sees? 

What could this restless man expect, 
Were all his wants to take effect ? 
Were heaven to rule as he’d contrive, 
Would he to greater bliss arrive ? 
Would he not, with impetuous force, 
Rush on, in Pride’s destructive course ; 
And plunge in a more desperate state 
Than that he now imputes to fate ? 
Would not his proud aspiring soul 
O’erleap the bounds of all controul ; 
And, by his pride and folly too, 
Disdendies creation through ; 

Till he were crush’d beneath his pride, 
And every work of God beside ! 
Or would mankind be happy here, 


Should now a golden age appear ? 


SHADE OF PLATO. 23 
Should Astrea, from her long retreat,* : 
Make earth, once more, her regal seat 5 
And by her renovating sway, . 
Sweep sickness, pain, and death away ; 
Should she for man, a bulwark form, 
Secure from each menacing storm ; 
Secure from elemental strife, 
That hourly threatens human life ; 
While lightning from beclouded dkies, 
‘Would seize its victims by surprize ; 
Or, while the shafts of death were hurl’d, 
By plague and famine, o’er the world : 
Should the mild goddess, here below, 
No more let thorns or thistles grow ; 
But make the earth spontaneous, bear 
Food for your race, without their care 3 
And then, to gratify their wish 
With nectar, season every dish :t 


*Astrea, a Sylvan Deity, or the goddess of justice, supposed 
by the ancients tq have resided on earth in the golden age, till 
offended at the vices of men, she abandoned her trust, and as- 
cended to Heaven, from whence she has never returned. 


+ The drink of the gods, as the orientals imagined. 


24 SHADE OF PLATO. 

Should scenes of pleasure, and delight, 

Be ever present, day and night : - 

Should Venus, more to earth incline ;* 

And springs afford the choicest wine ;— 

Should such an era now present, 

Say, would your race be more content ? 

Would they feel any more resign’d, 

Or think their Maker less unkind ? 
Man answers, yes, *tis all we ask ; 

Let us in sensual pleasures bask ; 

Let us of dainties have our fill; 

Let love be cherish’d when it will : 

Let us no earthly comfort, need ; 

Nor toil our appetites to feed : 

Then, to complete the blissful store, 

Add endless health ; we ask no more. 
For creatures, what submission this, 

To ask no greater happiness ; 

To wish to be of nought possess’d, 

But just what passion likes the best : 


* Whether the planet of Venus was the queen of Cyprus or 

the goddess of love mentioned in the heathen mythology is te 

_the author unknown ; it answers his purpose, however, to make 
such a conjecture. 


SHADE OF PLATO. ; 25 

But. they are sure that scenes like these 
Would long their restless sae please ? 
That they would take ap much delight. 
As now they vainly think they might ? 
That they would not of these be cloy’d, 
And seek new objects unenjoy’d 
Would not such restless hearts as theirs, 
Then feel opprest beneath the stars + 
And crave the pinions of the dove, 
To soar to unknown worlds above ; 
And, in the atherial wilderness, 
Search for a happier globe than this? 

Then why of Providence complain : 
Since there’s no ill that men sustain, 
No dangers, troubles, pains, or cares, 
But best befit a race, like theirs. 
Since as much bliss on earth is stor’d, 
As boundless wisdom would afford : 
Which mix’d with sorrow, toil, and fear, 
Keeps man within his proper sphere ; 
And bounds his proud, ambitious mind, 


_ Within the compass heaven design’d. 


SHADE OF PLATO. 


PART SECOND. 


Turn, to the vision, I replied, 

My friend, my unacquainted guide, 
Permit an inexperienc’d youth, 

Who fain would search the field of truth, 
In his rude manner to inquire, | 

Whence sprang this proneness to aspire ? 
Who sow’d those seeds of pride and lust, 
For which our hapless race are curst ? 
Could not the Almighty’s power, display’d, 
Of man a different being shail ? 

Why did he not prevent the fall, 

And thus immortalize us all? 

Then man in uncorrupted state, 

Had shun’d these desperate shafts of fate ; 
And free from every hoaien WO, 


Had liv’d forever, here below. 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Why not inquire, for justice sake, 

Whence sprang the lion’s savage make? 
Why the great Fountain Head of love, 
Made vultures differ from the dove ? | 
Why it did not his wisdom suit, >. 
With reason, to invest the brute ? 
If man’s unjustly robb’d of bliss, 
Why not the creatures wrong’d in this? 
Which, without reason for a guide, 
Hgom nature never step aside ; 
Yet in this universal plan, 
They share in wo as well as man. 
_ Had he whom nature first obey’d, » 
But one wrong calculation made; 
Then man might, reasonably infer, 
That he in other, things might.err ; 
But who among ‘aia feeble race 
Has skill to search Jehovah’s ways Styne tyi 
What cncshebaiin extend his view, 2) 
To scan the frame of nature through ger! 
And view in. all his works around 


Where imperfection, may be found:? S tady 
C 


28 


SHADE OF PLATO, 
Shall frail, imperfect man, inspect — 
The universal alate . 
When all the wisdom that he shares, 
Can acaned direct his own affairs ? 
Can he with all his selfconceit, 
Erect a system more complete? 
Can he a better plan devise, 


To add more beauty to the skies ? 


_ Or, at his pleasure, make the field 


A more luxuriant harvest yield ? 
Could he, if all his art were’ spent, 
A being like himself invent ? 
Or can his boasted skill create 
An sabe of the smallest rate ? 
And when created has he power 
To furnish life, or breath an hour ? 
If not, why then attempt to scan 
The wisdom of that God who can? 
It so falls out, that death and sin 
Have since the fall of Adam been : 
That all the human race must die : 


For what? the universal érfie ose" 


| SHADE OF PLATO. 29 

This none but God can tell, though true : | 
Yet beasts and reptiles perish too; — 
‘koa all the: fishes of the seas, | 
And why not man as well dp abene ? 
Why should this creature man, of right, 
Be Heaven’s peculiar favourite ? 
And from this natural curse escape, 
More than the bullock or the ape? 
Shall heaven be partiai to protect 
Your race, because they stand erect? 
Since allin one appointed way, 
Have bloom, meredian, and decay ; 
And if endow’d with life and breath, 
Are doom’d at last to suffer death? _ 

Tf all created beings share 
A universal Parent’s care ; ) my 
Wherefore should man his grace dispute, 
Unless more worthy than the brute ? 
All grades. below the human kind, 
Pursue the paths by Heaven design’d P 
we need os threats, or laws, 


To serve the great Efficient Cause : 


38 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Yet men, illum’d by reason’s sun) 
Directly to the leeward run ; 
Because their passions, lust, and pride, 
Will counteract this Heav’nly guide ;- 
And forthwith traverse to disgrace, 
Which proves a judement to your race ; 
Which én themselves they execute ; 
And yet God’s justice they dispute. 

And yet these ills, which men betide, 
Seem, with their wish to coincide ; Ss 
Or else, while they God’s grace deny, 
They must their miseries defy. 

The life of man is short, they say. 
Why wish the fleeting hours away ? 
Why months and years desire to miss, 


To grasp anticipated bliss 5 


_ And then, as future hopes unfold, 


Blame Heav’n, beeause they’re waxing old?) 
Why is this earth with carnage gor’d?” 

If human frailty is deplor’d ; 

If nen thus prize their life and breath, 


Why front the cannonade of death ? 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Why should astupid, giddy throng, 
Barter existence for a song? 
Or with invet’rate rage and spite, 
Butcher each other with delight ? 
As though their Maker needs their aid 
To kill the beings he has made ; | 
And nature, from a world 80 rough, 
Cannot despatch them fast enough. 

Did men the shafts of fate deplore, 
Would they not prize their being more ? 
Would not your race with anxious strife, 
Pursue a temp’rate course of life ? ° 
Or would they, like distracted elves, 
Clip its invalued thread themselves ? 
Would men thus wantonly desire © 
To plunge in war’s destructive fire ; 
And life a freewill offering make, 

With scarce a pennyworth at stake ? 

Do men, that life is bheré} complaiit. 
Why not licentiousness restrain ? 

Why shorten this delightful blaze,* 


By cleaving to pernicious ways ? 
ca 


31 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Why does the'sot, without controul, 
Embrace the-intoxicating bow], 
When reason tells him: to his; fancy 
ieheais tn. rate Wk disgrace? 
Why does. the libertine, dispense 
With life and health, to please hissense $ 
Which sense, oft-gratified, he knows, 
Must plunge him in.a:thousand woes);_ 
* All which must soon his frame, deprave;, 
And shortly bring him.to the grave ? 
Have not mankind. sufficient. powers 
To shun whatever thus devours:? 
And if they Kade: why murmur thus ! 
Since they their. own existence curse. 
This is the truth of. man’s complaint ; 
*Tis a weak, flimsy, groundless. feint 53 
A vain pretence, by which they try 
T’impeach that power that reigns on high. 
They love their vices to pursue 3 
Though death they know attach’d: thereto ;, 
And since therein they thus delight, 
They sanction eyery-curse, as right. | 


SHADE, OF BLATOs. 
Doubtless couid sin, from wo be free, 
They’d all more readily. agree : 
Yet since heav’n-can’t dispense with this, < 
They like the compound, as.it is 5 
And rather than: abandon vice; 
Life, health, and‘ peace they’ll sacrifice. 
And is this true, ye sons of pride ? 
Then lay pretended deutiss aside ; 
With humble fortitude, endure 
The effects of: sin, till ye are pure ; 
And for the favours ye possess, 
Feel grateful more, but plead’ the less. 
Say not, that but for Adam’s sin, 
Your race had all immortal been ; 
And ever shun’d hfe’s dreadful curse ; 
But say perhaps your lot. were worse 
Than now itis: for ’tis inferr’d, 
That this event had ne’er occurr’d, 
Had not the: great: Eternal: All, 
Foreseen it best that: man should fall : 
How then were men a: happier race, 


Had no derangement e’er took place. 


34 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Knows man what would of course befel, 


Were he not suffer’d to rebel ? 


_ Knows he, that earth’s stupenduous frame, 


Had ever in existence came? 
Or that his now important rank, 
Were not an everlasting blank ? 
And that creation’s boundless scene, 
Had ever contemplated been ? 
Although by man oncediiatd 
Each plan is best that Heaven devis’d : 
And this was one among the rest, 
That pleas’d superior wisdom best. 
Then why should man his Maker blame 
Ere he can comprehend his aim ? 
Would man thus hastily impeach 
Whate’er his reason cannot reach ; 
Then let him God’s last end express, 
Why the great fish destroy the less ? 
Why wolves, because they have the pow’r, 
The harmless lambkins may devour ? 
Why each ferocious beast of prey, 7 


May take inferior lives away ? 


SHADE OF PLATO. 

And why, with unreserv’d controul, 
-Man has deathwarrants for the whole ? 
And are the creatures for thy use, 

Thy slaves, to torture and abuse ? 
Were they design’d by God the just, 
To be the victims of thy lust ? | 
Then in his justice ill display’d, 


(Since men were for his glory made) 


Although he should such scourges send 


As best contribute to that end ? 

Would men God’s justice thus deny, 
Tn all, they know no reason-why : 
Then the whole system, tho” complete, 
Must all wisi human censure meet 5 
Nor He, for suff’ring man to fall, 
-Blam’d more than for creating all. 
Say, in this universal round, 


Ts ought but myst’ry to be found? 


Does not this earth, and all things here, 


One vast phenomenon appear ? 
And can your reason comprehend 
How it began, or how "twill end? 


= 


33 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
And is this a presumption strong; 
That all things are coeusel wrong? 

What if the great. First cause should deign 

To shew the justice of his reign ? | 
And his designs to man expose : 
Whence all this seeming discord rose ? 
- Why pestilential vapors rise? _ 
Why lightning flashes round the skies? 
Why tempests, with resistless. force, 
Bear down the forest in their sii ? 
Why £tna bursts with vengeful ire, 
And drowns the vale with liquid fire? 
Why subterrancous fluids bound, 
Oft undermine the solid ground; 
And plunge, with one destructive sweep," 
Extensive countries in the deep? 
Could men but know what they require ; 
Whence sprang inordinate desire; ~ 
How sin got footing here below ; 
And why the system’s fraught with wo: 
Could they these myst’ries all expound 5. | 
Say, what advantage would redound ? 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Could men, with knowledge thus array’d 
The subtile darts of death evade ? 
Could they, by some insidious spell, 
This tyrant from the earth expel ; 
And make ninth enase defeat, 
Stalk back to his infernal seat ? 
Could they, in vigour, health, and prime, 
Shun the impairing hand of time ; 
And here, in spite of nature’s doom, 
Be ’stablish’d in immortal bloom ? 
Would they sufficient knowledge share 
To purify a poison’d air ? 
To make unceasing zephyrs blow 
Round this distemper’d world of wo ; 
And with the health inspiring breeze, 
Prevent the havock Of disease?" 

Or were these secrets thus disclos’d ; 
Would man to heaven be less oppos’d? 
Would his venetiiotid heart be still, 

And copy more his Maker’s will 2 
Not for this ; the human heart 


Needs no such knowledge, pow’r or art, 


47 


38 


Ress 


SHADE OF PLATO, | 
To know the great Creator’s jst, 
Tho’ men are prone to pride and lust : 
For come these vices as they would, 
One truth is clear, that God is good ; 
And since he suffers sin and wo, 
Wherefore, concerns not man to know. 
This much can reason ascertain ; 
That one Almighty Cause must reign : 
That boundless power and wisdom too, 
First brought this system into view : 
That one allcomprehending soul, | 
Still makes the wheel of nature roll : 
That in a wedl directed line, | 
*T will meet the Author’s last design : 
And that to wisdom infinite, 
All finite beings must submit. 

And further too, can reason tell, 
Since men were suffer’d to rebel, 
That this depravity of man, 

Is couch’d in Heaven’s unerring plan ;._. 
And that the God who reigns on. high, 


Will glorify himself thereby; ,. . 


_~ SHADE OF PLATO. 

But how ’twill to this object tend, 
Not man below can comprehend ; 
For Heaven, with motives just and wise, 
Has hid this prospect from his eyes. 

Enough, that human beings know 
That they are station’d here below : 
That when this system first began, 
Earth was the theatre of man : 
That he has but and equal mind 
To act the part by heaven assign’d : 
That power to see what God’s conceal’d, 
Lies not within his narrow field : 
‘That heaven t’ inform is not oblig’d 
(Tho’ men its justice have besieg’d) 
Why death and sin the world pervade, 
More than why men at all were made ; 
Or why a God so great and wise, 
Created serpents, worms, or flies. 

Since then, weak man, thou’rt not endow’d 
With skill to pierce this mystic cloud ; 
Give all these useless scruples o’er, 


And the great Judge of all adore. 


D 


40 


SHADE OF PLATO. 


Reflect that God, with skill divine, 


Pursues one uniform design : 
That he, for some wise end, unknown 
Conceals the counsels of his throne - 


And though your race his ways suite, 


. The universe is govern’d right. 
id 


. The word of God doth plainly show, 
What most concerns mankind to know. 
This is the compass heayen bestow’d, 
To steer thro’ life’s bewilder’d road ; 
To make the path of duty bright ; 

To set each wand’ring pilgrim right ; 
To mark each fatal pit of sin, 


Ere heedless mortals tumble in ; 


And ifits dictates men pursue, 


There’s nothing more on earth to do. 
*Tis not for men, while station’d here, 

To rise above théir proper sphere ; 

Tis not requir’d ofthem to scan 

What lies beyond the bounds of man : 

There’s no necessity, in fine, 

That human beings should divine 


yy 


_ SHADE OF PLATO. 4\ 
What elements compose the sun : 
Whether there ’s systems more than_one : 
Whether the comets they behold, 

That move at random, uncontroul’d 
In ether’s boundless wilderness, 
Were once revolving worlds, like this : 
Whether the planets, (as ’tis thought,) 
Are all inhabited, or not : 
Whether ambition, death and pain, 
In those far distant regions reign : 
Whether the mansion of despair, 
Is in the sun, or moon, or where : 
Whether Heaven, in some etherial spot, 
Is locally confin’d, or not. 

Nor more are men oblig’d to tow’r, | 
tn moral things, beyond their power. 
Tis not their task, while here below, 
The secrets of their God to know. : . 
How He, whose grace was infinite, 
Could moral evil, thus permit ; 
How far this evil must éxitiend) 


'F’ encompass the Almighty’s end ; 


SHADE OF PLATO. - 
_And what great end, the God on high 
Designs to bring about thereby. 
These secrets, if men understood, 
Are not essential to their good ; 
For if they were, th’ unerring cause 
Would manifest these hidden laws ;* 
And from insatiate human ed 
Draw the dark curtain of disguise. 

These mysteries, while they’re unknown, 

Make men to admiration prone : 
Yet were the mystic Wools dispéll'd, 
_ They’d be indifferently beheld ; 
And could men trace the system through, 
They’d less appreciate what they knew. 
Hence, should the Heav’ns to man rehearse 
The grcu\dwork of the universe ; 
Could such proud beings, as your race, 
The boundless field of nature trace : 
Were the whole fabric all disclos’d ; 
K’ach part, for what ; and how compos’d ; 
Could men, thus scan creation bier: : 


They’d cease to wonder or adore : 


SHADE OF PLATE. AS 

‘Each different scene in Nature’s plan, 
Would be familiariz’d to man ; | 
Who flush’d with arrogance and prides 
Would soon their origin deride ; 
And see but little skill display’d, 
In all the objects he survey’d. 

Thus God, who every creature knows, £ 
On man sufficient light bestows, 
The path of duty to explore ; 
And having this, he needs no more. 

God’s government will have its course, 
In spite of all created force : 
And were men blest with greater light, 
They’d make no hair more black or white : 
Death is their unevasive lot, 
Whether they feel resign’d or not: 
Misfortunes, with disease, and pain, — 
Will ever in this world remain : 
- And'casual incidents will be, 
Which human wisdom can’t foresee. 
All these disasters nei must feel ; 


They’re rivetted in Nature’s wheel ; 
ca 


44 SHADE OF PLATO. 
Each flows in its appointed vein ; 
Nor murm’ring will their course restrain. 
Yet those, would men but practise right,* 
_ Would-feel comparatively light ; 
And they would shun a list of woes, 
Which from their pride and folly flows ; 
Which did they truly estimate, 
Are more than those impos’d by fate, 
Then why not this, the better way, 
To scruple less and more obey ; 
For men to own their Maker just, 
And strive to mortify their lust : 
To curb ambition, rage, and strife ; 
To add more fupaikiess to life ; 
And since their wal, imiperiect minds, 
Know not Jehovah’s vast designs ; : 
_ Since they’re a deep, unfathom’d plan ; ; 
Let Him be God, and man be man. 


* Those who inquire how they must practice, thus to miti- 
gate the natural evils of life, may take pattern by the prophet 
Habakkuk, iii. 17. Such a resigned temper as he expressed, 
will lead to a tenour of conduct that will gain the approbation of 
conscience,which,ifcontinued, will buoy the soul above the waves 
of sorrow, blunt the edge of misfortune, and almost convert 
the miseries of life into scenes of enjoyment and satisfaction. 


SHADE OF PLATO. 


RS Oe 
—— 


' PART THIRD. 


Herz, then I ventur’d to inquire ; 
If Nature has the best attire ; 
If all, harmoniously is made, 
‘Wherefore is blame to mortals laid ? 
If the whole system is poinplete; 
Why does not pride, revenge, deceit, 
With all the crimes that men commit, 
Somewhere in Nature’s drama fit ? 
If so, why not a fatal need, : 
Of every good or evil deed ?. 

To answer this, the Shade replies: — 
To find where blame, or duty lies, 
Let this belief be rooted strong, 
‘That the Most High has done no wrong 
That sin, or moral evil is : ' 


That they are not a fault of His: 


46 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
That He, though infinitely wise, 
No better system could devise : 
That this, since by his wisdom wrought, 
Were better to exist than not ; 
Because, that in no better way, 
Could he his attributes display. 
That does He, life, and being grant, 
From angels, downward to the ant ; 
Then in this intermediate space, 
One Sadik must fit the human race : 
That man had never fill’d this grade, 
If he had differently been made : 
That he, (if creniea complete,) 
Must have a body, head, and feet ; 
And every property partake, 
Essential to the human make. 
There must be eyes to him assign’d, 
To form a compass for the mind ; 
Yet this does not the mind control, 
To covet all the eyes behold. 

Man too, with hands must be supplied, 


An honest living to provide ; 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Yet reason, hence, no inference quotes, 
That they should cut bach other’s throats. 
For life, "Us likewise understood, 
ge here must be appetite, and food ; 
Yet this can no just cause supply, ; 
Why men should surfeit till they die. 
Your species must be qualified 
With innate properties beside. © 
Motives must actuate the race ; 
Love must incline them to embrace ; 
Disgust and hatred, to reject ; 
Fear to deter, and to protect ; 
Judgment, to draw conclusions clear ; 
“And hope, to make them persevere. 
If void of these to stimulate, 
The mind could ne’er preponderate. 
Man, must of consequence, have been 
A dul!, insensible, machine, 
Void of activity or thought, 
Unless a miracle were wrought ; 
' ‘And this might nals a stone or tree, 


- Both think and act as well as he. 


18 


SHADE OF PLATO. 


Propensities, mankind, no doubt 


Must have, and can’t subsist without : 


Yet they, their rightful conte can bend ; 

And basely prostitute their end. 

Men can love what they should despise ; 

Virtue be loathsome in their eyes : 

They can be anxiously in fear 

When therg’s no sign of danger near ; 

Judgment, may blend with prejudice, 

And hope, be bent on sensual bliss. 
However strange to man it seems, 

There ’s room for all these wide extremes ; 

He can ‘have inclinations strong, | 

To practise right, or practise wrong: 

He can be pleas *d, or can be vex’d, 

And no. fatality annex’d. . 
Nor view’d by reason, is it strange 

That what is mutable should change ; 

That passions thus should meet abuse, 

Although of most essential use ; 

Since they this property have got, 


Of being misapplied or not. 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
That man, placed in a world like th‘ 
(And ig could no where else exist) 
With sensual objects to allure, 


Without which, life could not endure 


With power to change and prostitute, — 


Whatever doth his being suit ; 
‘With nothing to confine his will, 
To choosé the good, or shun the ill; 
With opportunities to stray ;, 
Ronever rushing in his way ; 

That he thus delicately plac’d, 
Should be corrupted in his taste, 
And from his pristine virtue fall, 
Cannot be wonder’d at, at all: 

But then, at that eventful hour, 

_.» Ifhe had equal light and power, 

To know the law his God enjoin’d, 
And keep it, had he been inclin’d ; 

' As he was known to disobey, 
Motive must lead his mind astray : 
Objects must first produce this bent, 


Which nothing natural could prevent ; 


49 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
And were he stopp’d in his career, 
Supernal force must interfere ; 
Which force, tho’ Heaven could well effect, 
Man had no reason to expect ; . 
For, if a miracle had been, 
_ And first prevented man from sin ; 
He, thus restrain’d and overcame, 
Would merit neither praise nor blame. 

Thus man, an evil being is, 

Not from a fault of God’s, but his ; 
Not out of dire necessity ; . 
Nor by a rivetted decree ; 
Nor yet because the Almighty thought 
*T were better he should sin, than not; 
Could he a better way find out 
To bring the general good about. 
But man of virtue was bereft, 
Because he to himself was left : 
He from a voluntary choice, 
Did disobey his Maker’s voice ; 
And plung’d into a wretched state, 
Without the helping hand of fate. 


SHADE OF oi: 

Doubtless the great First Cause did know, 
How it would turn with man below: 
‘That parts, essential to his life, 
Must with his interest be at strife ; 
That such enticing objects round, 
Would run his feeble barque aground ; 
And that, if he were made at all, 
He would inevitably fall. 
Yet man, he knew, a being, meet 
To make his system out complete ; 
And if admitted into it, 
Would be a mutual benefit. 

If such a being, then, as man, 
Was needed in the Almighty’s plan, 
This question next, of course, occurs, 
Did God do right to make him thus ? 
if men, that he did not, contend, 

Then here this mighty cause count end ; 
And they be in suspense and doubt, 
Till heaven shall prove the matter out. 

But if Almighty God did just, 


In thus creating man at first, 
E 


51 


52 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Then reason, may this inference draw, 
That he might bind him by a law : 
That since he thus was bound, ’tis plain, 
That he from evil could refrain ; 
And that he had sufficient might, 
Lither to practise wrong, or right, 
That if this once the case has been, 
It must be now, as well as then : 
Men now can conquer pride and lust, 
As well as Adam could at first : 
And though his fall is much bewail’d, 
No power or duty was curtail’d ; 


Nor are his progeny excus’d, 


_ Because his trust was thus abus’d. 


Why should the human race, at large, 
Impute their vice to Adam’s charge ? 
Did he, to make his children stray, 
Hereditary force convey ? 

Must they pursue a path forbid, 
Barely, because their father did ? 
Do not their hearts, for every act, 


Or self-approof, or guilt contract ? 


SHAPE OF PLAT®. 
Do they not feel, that all their deeds, 
From voluntary choice proceed ? 
Or, are they, by more fatal means, 
Compell’d to dissipated scenes ? 

Does dire necessity constrain 
To take the name of God in vain ? 
Must men the Sabbath day discard, 
And filial duty disregard ? 
Is every diabolical crime 
That interrupts, from time to time, 
The peace, and harmony of states 
The work of overruling fates ? 
Does God by his resistless hand, 
Thus, his own orders countermand ? 
If so, these crimes must all appear, 
And why should justice interfere ? 
Why sholud the governmental lash, 
With human destination clash; 
And scourge the culprit for his blame, 
When he was fore’d to do the same? 
Might not, said I, this power sublime, 


Detetmine both the scourge and crime, 


53 


54 


SHADE OF PLATO, 
And, in his providential plan, 
Fix every punishment of man ? 
Then law, which does this task fulfil, 
Serves but to execute his will, 
Say further likewise, if thou durst, 
That Heaven with mortals deals unjust ; 
That God’s a tyrant at his heart, 
Inflicting pain without desert ; 
Say man (by this fallacious rule) 
Is a blind ign’rant, passive fool ; 


Drove by capricious power supreme; 


Like a dull horse, or senseless team ; 


Chastis’d with merciless abuse, 
Which answers Heaven’s despotic use ; 
And when his tragic scene does close, 
With silkworms, to abtein SOEs. 

Yet all this philosophic doubt, 
Ne’er proves this fatal system out ; 
Reason, although a feeble light, 


Disowns this proposition right : 


Mankind, uninfluenc’d by decrees, 


Can do their duty if they please 7 


- 


SHADE OF PLATO. 59 
And when they counteract the same, 
They know and feel themselves to blame. 
Your race, before their crimes exist, 
Have power to ponder and desist : 
If this is not the case indeed, 
From what can innate shame proceed ; 
When blood clandestinely is spilt, 
What loads the murd’rer’s heart with guilt? . 
Why, if compell’d by fatal strife, 
To rob another of his life, 
Ere it has come to public view, 
Ere legal vengeance does pursue, 
Why does his guilt disturb his rest, 
Till he the horrid deed confess, 
And yield that life a sacrifice, 
Which he hight shelter in disguise ? 
Why dees the conscience smitten thief, 
Start at the rustling of a.leaf ; 
And of his shadow be afraid, : 
If fate compels hina to his trade ? 
And say; is destiny in fear 


Of being apprehended here, 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
That it should thus evade the light, 
And make men pilfer out of sight ? 
Thus here rests this illgrounded suit, 
Commenc’d by mortals, to refute 
The justice of th’ Almighty’s aim, 
And streen our evil race from blame. 
If they are forc’d to do amiss, | 
No rules of right or wrong exist ; 
If they their vices must pursue, 
Then down with law, and gospel too; - 
Destroy each system of control, 
That bars the passions of the io ‘ 
Say life’s attenuated span, 
Concludes the destiny of man ; | 
Blot out both vice and dation vond i 
All civil punishments explode 5 
No future judgment apprehend, 
And see where man’s career would end 
Yet should it prove to be a fact 
That men are free to will and act ; 
- Should it appear, for pride and lust, 


That God can punish and be just ; 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Then is a time, inferr’d from hence, 
Of universal recompence ; 
When man, though worms his frame devour, 
Shall rise by supernat’ral power, 
- And burst the confines of the tomb, 
To hear a just, and final doom. 
If so, beware, presuming pout, 
How you deny this sacred truth ; 
How you impute your crimes to fate, 
Lest you God’s justice implicate 3. 
And falsely charge his righteous Throne, 
With what you then will blush to own. 

What, tho’ thou canst not comprehend 
How duty and foreknowledge blend ; 
Wilt thou in unbelief persist, 
And say, that beth eannot exist ? 
Why notas just, thy faithless heart, — 
Deny its intellectual part, 
Since none can know, by reason’s light, 
How soul and body can unite ? 
If thou dot sacred truth revere, 


Keep reason in its proper sphere ; 


57 


58 


SHABE OF PLATS, 
Lay vain philosophy aside ; 
Take revelation for a guide ; 
Nor let your race its truth dispute, 
Till there’s a better substitute. 
Then I replied—what need of this, _ 
To find out truth or happiness ? 
Does reason not its light afford, 
To teach how God should be ador’d ? 
Does it not every duty show, 
And tell men all they need to know ? 
Reason’s a most invalued prize, 
And so’s the blessing of the eyes ; 
Yet both of little use are found, 
Where there ’s no light reflected round. 
¥f nought but this, point duty out, 
Nature is one dark field of doubt ; 
And man devoid of guide or rule, 
Blunders through life, and dies a fool. 
What dire examples have been shown, 
Where revelation ne’er was known ; 
Where men had no instruction, save 


What the dim light of nature gave : 


y\ 


| SHADE OF PLATO, 59 

There you behold how reason’s light, 
Makes men distinguish wrong from right ; 
How children from religious aims, 

Have been devoted to the flames ; 

How reaseiy; to atone for sin, 
‘Has taught to lacerate the skin ; 

To hunger, thirst, and oft to die, 

To pacify the powers on high.* 

In India, taught by reason’s light, 

When death desolves the marriage rite, 
Those partners, who their spouse survive, 

- » Plunge in the fire, and burn alive ;t 
Thinking, should they therewith dispense, 
The God they serve would take offence, 

And for apostacy like this, 
Would spurn them from the realms of bliss. 
Reason instructs the Chinese poor, 


Who scarce a living can procure, 


* This doctrine was promulgated by Confucius, a legislator 
of China, who lived 479 years before the Christian era ; to con- 
- firm which, it is said, that he retired from government, shut 
_ himself up in a cave, and abstained from food till he starved 
to death. 


ft Uniy, Geog. abridged..:.page 383. 


60 SHADE OF PLATO. 
Their female offspring to destroy,* 
That they themselves may bliss enjoy, 
And have a competence, beside, 

For their male issue to provide. 

The Tartars, with this light array’d, 
Convert their daughters into trade ;+ 
They ’re barter’d like commercial things ; 
Some to be mistresses of kings ; 
Others, of an inferior rate, 

Are bought by ministers of state, 
And other pageants of a court, 

To be the vassals of their sport ; 
They’re staple articles at least 

In the vast empires of the east, 
Which every nobleman must own, | 
To scatter pleasure-round a throne. 

Tho’ these such desperate things project, 
They all have reason, to direct} 

* Univer. Geog. p. 376. 
+ Ibid: 373. 


} Here, the followers of reason, will probably make these 
tworemarks ; 1st. That in the abovementioned countries, this 
infallible guide has been supprest by tyranny, and superstition, 


_ SHADE OF PLAT. “Gt 

And think, (tho’ they themselves delude) 
‘That truth and duty are pursu’d. 

Besides, where ne’er God’s word prevails, 
The boasted right of reason fails 
In undertaking to define 
The attributes of power divine. 
Errors, on this important theme, 
Are built as baseless as a dream. 


#0 that it could not perform the office by nature assigned. 2d. 
That opinions and practices. prevail in Christendom, which are 
equally exceptionable to those above recited. To the first of 
these it is answered, that if reason is an unerring guide to 
truth and happiness, it must have deserted its post, or men in 
the early stages of these governments, must have been too in. 
different to their true interests to be deluded by it ; otherwise, 
oppression and bigotry, with the prejudices that have resulted 
from them, could. never have been so thoroughly éstablished ;_ 
and were these to be effectually rooted from the world by the 
regenerating influence of modern philosophy, mankind pos- 
sessing uniform propensities in all ages and climates, would be 
likely (if they escaped these) to embrace other prejudices which 
would terminate in the like fatal consequences. ‘T'o the second 
remark it is readily acknowledged, that the Bible, like all other 
bexeficial institutions, can be, and has been shamefully per: s:t- 
ed to answer the vices of the designing and crafty. This per- 
version, at the first, must have originated from two principal 
causes which are, Ist, a distrust of the main body of the peo- 
ple in their own, and an absolute dependence on the judgment 
of ecclesiastical professors, respecting the true intrepretation of 
the scriptures ; and 2dly, from the advantages which such pro- 
fessors have taken of such acredulity and dependence. In this 


62 SHADE OF PLATO. 
Nations by artificial rules, 
Forge out their deities with tools ; 
Or else at boasted reason’s nod, ~ 
Translate some reptile to a god. 

This compass too, from time to time, 

Varies with every age and clime: 
In pvt: men, like senseless blocks, 


Believ’d their Maker was an ox: 


manner, the most pernicious errors, both in faith and practice 
have been introduced into countries professing Christianity. 
The people believed the bishop of Rome to be the successor 
of St. Peter, without examining into the ground of his preten. 
_ sions: they thought, because his character was sacred, he 
could not possess a disposition to delude them ; and relying on 
his integrity,they yielded to him the exclusive. authority to gov- 
ern the church. Invested with this power he retrenched the 
circulation of the scriptures, pretending that the ignorant would 
prejudice their eternal interests by their misinterpretation. In 
this situation but little benefit could accrue to society from 
divine revelation. The decisions of the pope, were said by 
himself, to be infallible in all spiritual concerns, and the public 
deprived of the scriptures had not sufficient evidence to prove 
to the contrary. In this way he established a temporal domin, 
ion,and converted not only the religious credulity of men, but 
their crimes and wickedness into a profitable revenue to 
strengthen and support it. Past crimes, by paying tribute, 
might be remitted ; and future ones indulged, by which, with 
other religious impositions, he extended his spiritual empire 
over the greatest part of Europe, which could never be effected, 
had not the light of revelation been previously circumscribed, 


~ 


SHADE OF PLATO. 4 63 
The Persians, blest with reason’s ray, 
To Mithra did their homage pay ; 
And sought f’ avert his dreadful ire, 
By sacrificing to the fire : 
The Pagans, of a later time, 
Knew little more of power sublime ; 
Their reason taught then to suppose 
Some god for every thing that grows. 
There, in their dueecdoel list, 
Unnumber’d deities exist, © 
Of every graduated rank, 
‘Without an intervening blank, 
From Jove, who thunders thro’ the skies, — 
Down to the deity of flies. 

To these, they likewise did annex, 
Stature, complexion, shape, and sex. 
They thought, by reason’s partial view, 
That Gods, like human beings grew ; 

_ ‘That they of senses were asset “Rae 
That they were rational at best ; 
That those Almighty power above, 


Did, with each other fall in love ; 
F 


i. 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
And rear a progeny divine, 
In nature’s procreating line. 
As seen by reason’s glimmering lamp, 


Some gods, of this celestial stamp, 


» Full oft would amorously embrace 


The daughters of the human race ; 
Which process, made a nuim’rous list 
Of implicated geds exist ; 
Whose pow’rs, though partially decreas’d, 
Were half omnipotent at least. 

Thus here you readily explore, 
What reason taught in days of ware : 


How (counter to its modern strain,) © 


It taught, that num’rous gods did reign ; 


That these, in reason’s acc’rate scale, 
Like men, were mutable and frail ; 
That they were partial and unjust ; 
That hatred, envy, rage, and lust, 
Ambition, cruelty, and fraud, 

Were all the attributes of God =) 

That tho’ these pow’rs were tho’t divine, 


Some, from necessity would join ; 


SHADE OF PLATO. | 65 
Others, of boundless pow’r possest, 
Were subjug ated by the rest, 
And as the ancients were opiate 
For their rebellion, were chastis’d ; 
Thus Jupiter, incens’d with wrath, 
Kick’d his own son from Heav’n to earth, 
Where he, with subterranéous fire, 
Forg’d bolts of thunder for his sire. 
Doctrines, thus ludicrous and odd, 
Mankind have broach’d, concerning God 


All which were taught by reason’s light, 


Yet sure they cannot all be right. 


SHADE OF PLATO. 


\ 
PART FOURTH. 


Ar this, I ask’d, is injury done, 
To say there’s twenty gods, or One 
What matter, if men are sincere, 
How many deities they fear ? 
Whether they rev’rence Three in One, 
Or pay their homage to the sun ; | 
Or worship Apis, Jove, or Baal, 

Or awn no deity at all ? 

Of what avail religious creeds, 

if men are honest in their deeds ? 

If they’ll not lie, nor cheat, nor steal, 
Nor interrupt the public weal ? 
Ifthey the gen’ral good pursue, 
What more have mortals here to do ? 


Why stick at falsehood, theft, or fraud ? 


If men may disbelieve a God, 


SHADE OF PLATO. 67 

And their professions be sincere, 
Pray tell me what they have to fear? 
If this belief be rooted HOES, 
Duty must seem a senseless term ; 
And men, with passions to entice, © 
May range the crooked maze of vice, 
Till life’s contingent scene is clos’d, 
Like tapers to the wind expos’d. 

Tis faith in one All-Seeing Eye, 
That makes mankind themselves deny : 
That does licentiousness control ; 
That curbs the proud; rebellious soul ; 
. And did your race, this thought forego, . 
No bounds to violence below ; 
Not conscience, nor the world’s applause, 
Nor magistrates, nor civil laws ; 
Nor monarchs, witly despotic frown, 
Could keep the tide.of folly down. 

Were men to trust to fate, or chance, 
They’d soon. to. anarchy.advance ; 
‘That faithful monitor within, | 


No more would. chide mankind for sin. 
F 2 


SHADE OF PLATO, 

Your race, to vice would fly betimesy, 

Nor feel responsible for crimes ; 

Society’s essential wall, © > 

Before depravity would fall ; 

Honor and shame would have an end; 

Evil and good promiscuous blend ; ” 

Justice, and truth, the oath forsake, 

And lust, unbounded havoc make. 

_ And if no God presides at Helm, 
O’er nature’s universal realm, 

(Since human life is brief and frail, 
And men their destiny bewail,) 

Tis best for your unhappy race, 
That peace, to rapine should give place ; 
That man, to shun stern fate’s abuse; 

‘Should turn ferocious passions loose; 
‘Till a sad race, to wo attach’d, 

Are to non-entity dispatch’d. 

Did not divinity appear 
Within the mental Lemisphere ; 
Did it iotehinieaeld radiant light, 
In reason’s short contracted sight 5 


\ 


SHADE OF PLATO. — 69 
Did sion the whole creation round, 
With marks of Deity abound, 
Then might your race be justified, 
To set this common faith aside. 
But now, to own no God en high, 
Men both their sight and sense deny, 
And do a baseless plan erect, 
Which their own reason must reject. 
The truth of energy divine, 
‘Forces conviction on the mind, 
And its own poner naire draws; 
Drak every operating cause ; 
In every. age, in every clirnes 
Mankind have own’d a Power Sublime; 
And all Divinity ador’d, 
. Although in different forms explor’d. 
Yet plain asis this sacred truth, 
It pevitis in modern days uncouth 5 
- And now inf reason’s boasted school, 
Is lash’d with boundless.ridicule ; 


Now human wisdom fain would prove, 


That there’s no God who rules above ; 


SHADE OF PLAT@ 
That all this boundless universe,” 
Was once a huge ungovern’d mass ; 
A vast, stupendous whitligig, 
Dancing to one eternal jig, 
Till by an accident, outright, 
Matter on matter chanc’d to light ; 
Substance, from one confused storm, 
All rush’d to embryotic form, 
And chaos, once convuls’d with jars, 
Produc’d the sun, and moon, and stars, 
And this terraqueous planet here, 
Without a God to interfere. 

And are these philosophic ales : 
‘Then tell me, ye enlighten’d fools, 
Whether an accidental case, 

Could balance worlds in empty space, 

And bound their course thro’ ether’s realm, 
Without a pilot, ora helm. 

Say, when this system first begun, 

Did accident iliume the sun? 

Did some combustible, by chance, 


O’er its extended surface glance 5) 


gig SHADE OF PLATS. A 
And by a fortuitous blaze, 
Kindle its inexhausted rays ? 
7 Say, if by chance; the rolling spheres 
: Could measure months, and days, and years ; 
And down, through time’s deceitful tract, 
Mark out division, so exact? 
Did chance produce thee ? reasoning elf, 
_ A maze, a wonder to thyself, 
A being, found of size and shape, — 
Unlike the elephant, or ape 5 
Or stone, or tree, or spire of py 
Only because it came to pass ? 
Did it require no skill, nor aim, 
To organize thy curious frame ? 
To form the texture of the skin, 
And make thy blood to flow within ? 
Art thou, vain man, with reason drest ? 
Is there reflection in thy breast ? | 
Art thou with sight, and sense endow’d, 
And yet no God by thee allow’d ? 
As well might thy prepost’rous race, 


Deny the sun’s meridian blaze; 


72 


SHADE OF PLATO. 

While its refulgent beams of light, 
Dazzle the organs of their sia 

And yet all men, who hitherto, 
Have thought this sacred doctrine true, 
Are call’d in philosophic schools, 
aiistinamnste hypotrites, or fools. 
This faith, they say, from earliest date, 
Has been the hobby horse of state ; 


Ambition’s bugbear, plac’d on high, 


To fright the multitude thereby ; 


~ 


That fear, and superstition, since 

Have been its patrons and defence. . 
This project form’d by ancient sleight, 
They now intend to bring to light ;_ 
They’ve lately found that church and state, 
On human weakness speculate ; 

That all religion is a cheat, 

Pounded in av’rice and deceit ; 

The craft of subtile priests, at best, 

To spunge a living from the rest ; 
That what the scriptures do rehearse, 


Is but a temporary farce; 


dank OF PLATO. 73 

By mercenary views design’d, 
To awe the low and vulgar mind ; 
That those, who with assiduous strife, 
Make them the compass of their life, 
And square their conduct by their rules, 
Are all infatuated fools ; 
Whe for a feito world of bliss, 
Have too much care to live in this. ° 

Nor is this all th’ important news : 
They’ve found by critical reviews, 
That civil law is but a snare, 
Which bins and ministers prepare ; 
A cunning, unsuspected plan, : 
To cramp the liberties of man ‘ 
That prohibition, and control, 
Obstruct the genius of the soul, 
Which would, did they not interfere, 
To freedom and perfection steer ‘ 
That men, tho’ some appear forlorn, 
Are on one equal platform born ;. 
And therefore have an equal claim, 


To power, and property, and fame : 


74 


SMADE OF PLATO. 

That the dear tie, *twixt man and wife, 
The strongest ligament of life, 
is but an arbitrary measure, 
To rob the species of their pleasure : 
That children, (if they run alone) . 
Are young republics of their own ; 
And may, if they are not control’d, 
Know all the world, at ten years old. 

‘That human nature thus is pent, 
These new philosophers, resent ; 
They now, with much affected grace, 
Profess t’ avenge an injur’d race ; 
And from the chains of bigotry, 
To set deluded nations free. 
To bring this glorious plan about, 
Religion must be rooted out ; 
Habits, which ages past have form’d, 
Must from theif citadel be storm’d ; 
Tradition must be overthrown ; 


And reason guide the world alone ; 


Distinction must be melted down ; 


And heads struck off that wear a crown ; 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Phifosophy, with genial ray, 


Must sweep all prejudice away: 


Parents, for children, not their own, — 


To equal kindness must be prone 5 
Partial affection for a friend, 

With universal love must blend ; 
And ev’ry class beneath the sun, 
Be all cemented into one. 

Farther, *tis needful to remove, 
That old embargo, laid on love ; 
Embarrassments must all recede, 
That do the bliss ef man impede ; 
Sexes, promiscuows, must unite, 

No matter whether black’or white, : 
Civil, or savage-; every kind, 

In one vast family combin’d ; 
Devoid of every selfish view, 

‘Must mingle blood, and interest too ; 
All treasures from the east to west, 
By every son of man possess’d, 
This renovating iss: must reap, 


And pile in one enormous heap’; 
<G r) 


“te. 


ot 
Girt 


76 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Where individuals ‘can repair, __- = 
And each one draw their equal anaes : 
That rich, and poor, in every land, 
May on an equal footing stand; 


Houses, of every size and rate, LS 


(Since some are small, and some are great, 


And some above the rest aspire;) 
Must be devoted to the fire ; 


Respecting lands, this spacious ball, 


Must be the property of all, 


And form one vast extensive park, 
Defac’d of every local mark ; 
A common lot, where all mankind, - 
May ramble free and cakikiatcl: 

*Tis said, that when their gracious plan, 
Has thus regenerated man ; _ 
Whene’er the fiery trial’s through, 
His injur’d race will prick anew 5 | 
That made, by vast experience, wise, 
They’ll then begin to mind their eyes, 


And will, in future times, beware, . 


‘To shun ambition’s fatal snare : 


sii OF PLATO, 

That after man is thus releas’d, 
Oppression will forever cease ; 

‘No more shall impositions base, ’ 
Cramp the bright genius of the race ; 
Reason, the only guide to 60h: | 
Will build an evérlasting thebiie, 
And by her true unerring light, _ 


Will the whole world be guided right. 


Mankind, will then, so subtile STOW, 


They'll eet the upperhand of wo ; 
The art of healing, now unknown, 
Will then to all the world be shown ; | 
Your race, will find a sovereign cure, 
For each disease they now Sobel ; 
*Till vers’d in medicine complete, 
Death and the Devil they'll defeat ; 
And having once obtain’d a birth, 
Will be {inmortad here on earth. 
When Hymen’s wall is broken down, 
In iumbers too, thiey Ib incre abound ‘ 
For males and females will embrace, 


Nor stick at colour, time, or place. 


77 


i 
SHADE OF PLAT@. 


Men will be born, but never die > 
Pray think how fast the’ll multiply ;. 
Then in this elorious reign of peace, 
Will men so rapidly increase, 

That in a cent’ry, less, or more. 
This earth will all be peopl’d o’er 5 


And some (ifall remain alive) 


Must swarm from this, their native hive. 


al 


And in aérial transports fly, , 
To settle other worlds on high. 
' Besides, in these millennial times, 
Mankind will not be prone to crimes 3. 
This earth no culprits will produce, 

Prisons will then be out of use ; 
All courts and laws be set aside ; 
Sciffnterest rooted out, and pride. ;- 
Each individual of the race, 


Will know and keep his proper place ;. 


‘And, for the universal weal, 


Will put a shoulder to the wheel. 
Next, after pride does thus remove; 
f f 


When ‘the whole race cenient: in love ; 


SHABE OF PLATO. 

When all, with boundless friendship burn, 
The golden ages will return. we 
Then will the elements unite 

To give the race of men delight ;. 

No more the lightning’s fatal glare, 
But just to purify the air. 

No more by plague and famine hurl’, 
Shall death be scatter’d round the world ; 
No more menacing tempests rise, 

To hurl destruction thro’ the skies... 
All subtile dangers, ere they pass, 

Will be expos’d by reason’s glass z 
And men, with nothing to annoy, 
Devote themselves to boundless joy: 

Nature, by man’s united force,. 

Will turn her antiquated course ;. 

_All objects, placid and serene, 

Will ope a vivifying scene. 
This rugged world will be renew’d 5 
No thorns, or brambles. will intrude 3. 
No noxious weeds appear in sight, 


To taint this region of delight. 
G 2: 


79 


80 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Spontaneous food, this eavih will bear; 3 
Without ater or care. 
The clouds, that from its surface rise, | 
Will shower down manna from the skies: 


The fabled‘ nutriment of Jove, 


- Will fall in clusters from above : 


And man, great nature’s only friend, 
Revel in pleasures without ends. 

Lo ! what-a glorious epoch this ; 
What an exhaustless source of bliss ! 
If these philosophers succeed; 
Then will the world be blest indeed ;- 
Then will your race, by their advice, 
Find a new road'to Paradise, 

Which generations, heretofore, 
Ne’er had the fortune to explore. 
This way to immortality, 

Just like the golden rule of threes. 
Will be so simple to discern, 
That ev’ry blunderhead may learn. 
All men, in one united class, 


May onward to perfection pass... 


SHADE OF PLATO, 
Divest of ev’ry human flaw, 
They’ll need no government, or law. 
Their natures, void of bride and lust, 
Will prompt to every thing that’s just. 
Your race, like beavers, will unite ; 
One principle, one social right 5, 
One common interest’to pursue,’ 
Held up-to unions view. 
Ambition, that infernal guest,. 
Will rear no head above the rest ; ; 
Justice, with her impartial hand, 
Will blot distinction from the Jand,. 
And all things toa level strike 
All men will think and speak alike ;. 
Their features, intellects, and aim,, © 
Will uniformly be the same ;. 
And with each other, will. sods 
If reason makes this system: bear.. 
. Yet, should this group, (as they pretend): 
Encompass this delightful end, 
It must require some unknown sleight 1 


Which time has never brought to light.. 


82 


’ 
sor 


SHADE OF PLATO, 
They must, to bring this plan abonts 
Turn human nature inside out ;. 
And with their renovating art, . 
Make application to the hearty 
Ere the whole race abandon lust; 
And learn: to practice what is justi 
Pride, which they think to overthrow,. 
Will never quit this world below, 


Fill it receives itsfinal fall,- 


From Him. who made, and governs-all:. 


Philosophers, with all their skill, 


Can’t regulate the public will ;. 


Or banish local: prejudice, 


From such:a temper’d race as this. 


Children to parents wilh be dear,. 


‘Though fire and faggot interfere : 
Misers, may yield their wealth to force ;, 
¥et this will not their minds divorce, 


Or make the coffers which they prize,. 


- Seem less delightful im their eyes.. 


Nor can these sons of light remove, . 


Revenge, disgust, or partial love ;- 


Sad 

SHADE OF PLATO. | 
These on this earth will have a place, 
And ever prepossess vem race 3 
Promotion will allure the mind ; 
Pleasure, its advocates will find ; 
Deceit and falsehood will intrude 
Upon the weaker multitude ; $f 
And pride, when it is fully grown, 
Will find materials for a throne. 
| And, could all property be hurl’d 
In one huge pile for all the world,. 
Some inconvenience all must bear, 
Ere each could gain his equal share :_ 
It must engross a length of time, 


To count all men in ev’ry clime 3. 


And months, and years, no doubt must pass, _ 


To estimate th’ enormous mass. 
' In this new business of the age, 
Must each cosmopolite engage ; 
All must perform an equal part, 


Or some above the rest will start, 2 


And have two shares, while some have none,. 


To pay for double service done. 


$3 


84 


SHADE OF PLATO. — 

None must by robbery, or stealth, — 
Deprive another of his wealth ; 
Or strive his patent to possess, 
By swindling, gambling, or finesse : 
For, should this be the dire event, 
In vain, would all their grace be spent. 
The high, and low, (detested names) 
Once more would light on human frames. 
Badges, distinctions, titles, birth, 
From exile, would vets to earth ; 
fend men would be reverting back, 
To their old antiquated track. 

Nor will this new invented ee 
Annihilate belief in God ; 


This most invaluable thought, 


- Is human nature’s last resort. 


A God, on earth, will be ador’d, 

In spite of guillotine, or sword ; 

In spite of this enlighten’d band, 
This faith from age to age will stand. 
The truly virtuous of your race ~ 


Will this delightful truth embrace ; 


SHADE OF PLATO. 

Because, the only source Sli 
Whence peace and happiness can flow. 
This will support each pious soul, 
When waves of sharp affliction roll ; 
When fortune, by a frown severe, 
Strips them of every. object dear. ; 
When they no waste joys can find, 
This thought will buoy the sinking mind : 
That one, Allwise, omniscient Guide, 
Does o’er the universe preside ; 
And that his power, on which they rest, 
Will order all things for the best. 

Besides, upon this earthly stage, 
There will bes ensia in every age, 
Who will this blessed doctrine broach, 
That they on others may encroach ; 
Who, for emolument or fief, 
Will speculate on this belief, 
And make the sacred name .of,God, 
Sanction injustice, force, and fraud. 

Nor will this purifying storm, 


~ Dress the whole’world in uniform ; 


“86 


| 


s SHADE OF PLAT®. 


Or make-the remnant of your race, 


In politics, assume one face :~ 
} 
Interests and objects, nations guide ; 


These, thro’ the world diversified, 


Shifting and changing, every hour, 


Vibrate the scale of human power ; 
When by the ripening hand of time, 
Huge empires to their summits climb, 


Foreign ambition, envy, hate, 


‘Will sap the basis of a state ; 


Or else, some domineering lord, 


Will strain the governmental cord, 


- And on the rights of subjects prey, 


Till his authority gives way, 
And slaves, (injustice to repel) 
Against his lawless power rebel. 


New colonies, for fréedom’s sake, 


_ The tyrant’s galling yoke will’break ; 


‘ And brave the thunders of his throne, 


To rear a standard of their own. 
Such individuals will unite 


To vindicate their injur’d right, 


§ 


sivADE OF PLATO. | $7 
And firm for liberty remain, 
Till they the blessing do obtain : - 
Yet, when with hadpendends blest, 
(Tho’ this the happiest state and best 5 
Tho’ this the surest way to tow’r, 
To wealth, to opulence and power ; 
The’ justice, virtue, truth, and bliss, 
Light first upon a land like this) %, 
Corruption will at length prevail 5 
Laws will relax as virtues fail ; 
Freedom, before so dearly bought, 
Wili soon of little worth be thought ; 
The public eves will fall asleep ; 
Villains, into importance leap 3» 
Disorganizing mobs ‘nerds 
To storm the citadel of peace ; 
Intriglhag, governmental spies, 
With envious hearts, and jaundic’d eyes, 
Will stigmatize without a cause, 
Measures, and magistrates, and laws ; 
And swell their faults of slightest kind, : 


To prejudice the public mind. 
u , 


&8 


_ SHADE OF PLATO, 

Mean chine (while some whose’ noble hearts 
Disdain such base insidious arts ; 
While others, void of all deccit, . - 
Are never jealous of a cheat 5. 

While the most numerous class, by far, 
Are lur’d by castles in: the alr’, 
Aspiring partizaris to aid) 

The public cause will be betray’d ; 
The idle, profligate, and vain, 3 

To posts of honor will attain, 

W ho, in a\patéletio veil, 

Alllaw and order will assail ; 

Till some, at length more fortunate, } 
Mount to the pinnacle of state, 


And, with exorbitant demands, 


Wrest freedom from:the public hands. ’ 


When pride unto this height does sol 
Dupliciy will strengthen: power ; 
Both creeds and. laws (tho’ blessed things) f 
Will serve th’ ambitious cause of kings, 
And help facilitate their plan, 
To cramp the social rights of man. © " 


$ 


- SWADE OF PLATO. 


™ 


\ 


Courts, that their pomp may be supplied, 
New impositions will provide ; x 
Extortion with a rig’rous hand, 
Will grind the poor to feed the grand, 
The idle pensioners of power, ‘ 
Like Xerxes’ army, will devour - 
Grandeur, supplied by boundless cost, 
Its own subsistence will exhaust } 
The iust and vices of the great, 
Will prey like vultures on the state, 
Till the tall trunk of regal sway, | 
Begins to wither and decay ; 
Till overbearing power at length, 
Lacks energy, support, and strength 
And state, with all resources dried, 
Falls a sad victim to its pride. 

To such vicissitudes as these, 
(Far from uninterrupted ease) 
The police of the world adheres 5 
For now, almost six thousand years, 
Nations upon the public stage, 
Haye play’d. this farce from age to. age 5 


~ 


89 


$9 


‘ 


SHADE: OF PLAT@. 


7% 


This world has been a ruffled scene, 


Where jarring principles have been ; 


Truth has perform’d a useful task, 


For stripping falshood of its. mask,, 


_ And counterworking every plan, 


To immolate the rights of man;, 
Religion,, piety, and grace, 

Have had a consequential place ; 
The virtuous precepts these impart,. 
Have dignified the human heart ; 
Have swell’d the compass of the soul). 
To seck the welfare of the whole, 
And made societies increase. 

In friendship, unity and peace + 

Vice, with its satellites below; 

Has introduc’d each public we, 

And prov’d the origin and source 

Of blovishead violence, and force ;. 
Faction, and turbulence, and. lust, 
Have sown division and disgust, 
Which, ripen’d and maturely grown, 


Have law and order overthrown, 


4 


“SHADE OF PLATO; 
And every social tie expell’d, 
Which have societies upheld. 
Causes, so opposite as these, ; 
By greater, or by less degrees, 
Alternately have had their weicht,. 
Tn sail civilized state 5 ii 
And chang’d the aspect of the times 


In all societies and climes. 


Kes 


The restless tempers men have shar’d,. 


_ Of freedom ‘have the race debar’d ; 


Each privilege, once highly priz’d, 


Where si sida has been despis’d ;. 


While scenes more consonant to pride, 
Have drawn the public mind aside. | 
Each social barrier of the day, 


Has proves & burden in the way pen 


Free rovernmeénts that yet have MRE OR 
Have erown too lib’ral for their good; 


Too much themselves’ by Tast ee a 


To lash the volunteers of’ vice ; 


“a 


Too sia to pride and avarice rss; ' 


To make the’ public good thief own } > 


H 2. 
& / 


' 


Sake ee! 
oT Pes ee 


SHADE OF PLATO: 
And too imperfect and impure, 


Of long continuance to endure. 


‘Where liberty has held its sway, 


Passions have had more room to play ;. » 
Private ambition and finesse, 


Have had more influence and success 3. 


Freedom, (by men so much belev’d), 


Has been licentiously improv’d ;. 


The more of liberty they’ve shar’d, 


The more the vilest men have das’d 

To vilify anil cthadalion 3 

The great, the virtuous, and the wise ; 
‘ 

And sought promotion and renown 


By plucking higher merit down, 


Each office, each important -post, 


Both knaves and fools have, thus engross’d,. 
Who, by imprudence or design, | : 
Have made societies decline, . i 

And plung’d their country, state, or place, 
In irretrievable disgrace. 


Where freedom thus has been infring’d, 
And all th’ affairs of state unhing’d,. 


SHADE OF PLAT@. 
Such states, a greater we to shun,. 
Have oft repos’d their trust in ore,’ 
Who, when establish’d on a throne, 
Has been to innovation proney. = 
And sacrificed the public trust. 


To pride, to selfishness, and lust.. 


When kings, with passions unrestrain’d, 


_— 


Have thus the government obtain’d, 
The method, next in_course, pursued,. 
Has been, the nation a delude ; 

And make the public all unite, 

In thinking. regal pow’r was right > 
Hence both Divine and human laws, 

_ Have been perverted in their cause. 
The-clergy, foster’d by the state, 

Have plead their right to subjugate ;, 
And sanction’d this notorious lie, _ 
That kings had charters from on high,. 
And grants to govern and oppress, 

All they could conquer, more or less.. 


Aw’d by this. sacerdotal joke, 


Nations have ering’d beneath their yoke 5. - 


os 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
And chought, with conscientious aim, 
God’s'cause and tyrants’ were the same, 
Thus, have: religious errors grown, 
Fill they have fortified the throne ; 
Knowledge, has gradually declin’d ; 
Science and learnine been confin’ds_ 
Ign’rance and superstition too, — e 
Have banish’d truth from public view > 
None, but the fev aspiring great, 
Have dar’d to scan the affairs of state ; 
And these by special favors brib’d, 
Have for despotic power Subedrib’d: : 
Kings, have been view’d by common eyes, 
As the vicegerents of the skies ; 
And, in this character-explor’d, 
Have been like deities ador’d. 
Subjects, by this delusion taught, 
With conscientious zeal have fought, 
And laid their lives and interests down,. 
To shield the honorofa:crowni — > 
Bs roops, marshall’d at a tyrant’s nod). sb: 


Have ravag’d peaceful states-abroad,. 


x 


SHADE OF PLAT, $3 
And spread dominion far and ides 
Believing Heaven was on their side ; 
And that all men beneath the sun, 
Were made to be the slaves of one. 
Yet, tho’ such errors bicve:peevall’d; 
Where liberty has been curtail’d, 
It cannot be at cried inferr’d, 
‘That all religion is absurd: 
Or that each pious faith; or creed, © 
Did first from human art proceed. . 
As well this truth might be denied,, 
That streams, by nature, are supplied ; 
Since they by human’ skill and force, 
Are oft diverted from their course.. 
Such impositions, have, in briefy. 
Been hing’d on less corrupt belief ; 
Errors, from selfish views, forsooth, 
Have oft been interwove with truth. 
Kings, have by lucre, oft entic’d, 
The sacred ministers of Christ ; 
Who have (past favors to requite): 
Dubb’d kings infalliable and right 3, 


96 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Born to command, by Heav’n’s behest 3 
And crowds have yielded to the test; - 
When no credentials could be given, 
But forg’d authority from Heay’n. 

Tn this degenerating road, 
Republic states have ever trod ; 
Each lib’ral system of control, 

To guard the interest of the whole; 
And be of beneficial use, | 

Has been perverted to abuse ; 

And chang’d into a public game,. 
To win emolument and fame. 


Each social compact at the first, 


Has needed.laws to bridle lust 


All new societies have found, 


That individuals must be bound ;» 


That all, must some.restraint endure, 


Their private interests to. secure ; 


And yield some natural right, possess’d,. 


- To forma bulwark for the rest. . 


Yet, where societies have tried, 


Thus to restrain the rage of pride;, 


‘ 
* 


~ 


SHADE OF PLAT®.. , 97 
And keep licentiousness,confin’d, 
Their efforts have been undermin’d. 
Statutes, tho’ equal, ree and just, 
Have been explain’d to favor lust ; 
Secreted avenues of-vice; 

Unseen by legislative eyes, | 
Have left full many a gap unclos’d, 

Where crimes have enter’d unoppos’d ; ae 
Where knaves, uncheck’d by needful laws, 
Have prey’d upon the public cause. | 

Freedom, by kings, or commons us’d, 

In either case, has been abus’d : 

All ranks of men with power endow’d, 
Have soon grown insolent and proud ; 

And by exertions of their might, 

Have fed their av’rice, pride, or spite. 
Few, very few,have been too good, 

To take th’ advantage when they could. 
Most of your race, when arm’d with power, 
Have had propensities to tower ; : 

And rose to fortune’s gilded height, 


By cramping individual right. 


SHADE OF PLATO. 

From such a fatal course, ere long, | 
The weak have yielded to the strong ; 
The strong, of sieate and power possest, 
Their weaker brethren have opprest o> 
And when, to tame gubiitedion wrought, 
Have gain’d their service for a groat. 

From this vile passion to impose, » 
Alf arbitrary pow’r has rose 3) 
Avarice and lust, were first the cause, 
Of bracing commonwealths with laws ; 
Which, for a temporary term, 
Have kept the public interest firm : 
Yet lust, as states have waxen old, ~ 
Has grown more turbulent and bold : 
Laws have seem’d tedious to observe . 
Most men had rather rule than serve ;_. 
Most men possest of public trusty~ 
Have sought their private interest first ; 
And in their gradual rise to power, 
Have chain’d their country-more and more ; 
Till some, of more intrigue possest, . 


Have soar’d on high above the rest ; 


‘ 
\ 


SHADE OF PLATO. ~ 

And by their opulence and weight, | 
At last have overcome the state. 
Thus freedom, oft from public view, 
Has imperceptibly withdrew ; 
Till scarce the welcome guest was known, 
Save in the suburbs of a'throne ; ) 
Where, in a surfeiting repast, 
It revell’d till it breath’d its last. 

Thus has the selfishness of man, 
Subverted every useful plan, 
Which all societies have view’d, 
As most conducive to their good. bd 
- This was the first procuring cause ; 
Not government, nor civil laws ; 
Nor any sacred creed imbib’d, 
Why freedom has been circumscrib’d ; 
And why proud tyrants, unrestrain’d, 
Have millions of your race enchain’d. 
Doubtless, where social’checks like these, 
Have grown habitual by degrees ; 
And could not well be rooted out, 


Avarice, has turn’d their use about ; 
a : . 


ss 


160 2s SHADE OF PLAT®, 
Till they auxiliaries became, 
T’ encompass each aspiring aim. 
But did there no restraint preside, 
To check the tendency of pride, 
Knaves clad with power, and nerv’d with steel, 
Directly would to force appeal ; 
And violence, in every fara 
Would raise an universal storm ¢ 
In short, without some social band, 
No body politic could stand ; 
The strong, who power and profit seek, 
Would scale the fortress of the weak 
And all their dearest rights invade ; 
All trust would slidiaie be betray’d, 
: To answer avaricious views, 
Which would such jealousy diffuse, 
Thain the promise of your race, 
Dependence could not find a place. 
*Tis true, were men, like beavers, prone 
States, without laws, might stand alone ; 
Like them, did individuals feel, 


_ Th’ importance of the general weal ; 


ban 


gH ADE OF brine ee , 
Was public good the private aim, 
Instead of pyieasets wealth or fame ; 
Did this one ko your race inspire, 
Discord and slander would retire : 
Dissenting interests ne’er would rise ; 
Of course no motives to disguise ‘ 
Nor one malevolent design, 
For social barriers to confine. 
Did men this pattern imitate, 
Freedom might flourish in a state ; 
And each republic, in its prime, 
Might travel unimpair’d thro’ time. - 
But, spite of what logicians say, 
Mankind incline a different way ; 
All human beings, at the best, 
Of selfish motives are possest, 
Which will, (if cherish’d by the race) 
End in oppression and disgrace. 
Whence then, sprang this fallacious creed, 
That bondage did from laws proceed ; 
. And that the worst of human woes 


From discipline and order rose? 


3 ha: - = x Se OF PLATS. 

| Have not these been the only guard, 
Of all the blessings men haye shar’d ? 
It is a burden understonds 

That none may shed another’s,blood ? 
Does it philosophers displease, 

That a rude. band of debauchees, 
May not like Adamites of yore,* 
Have women all in common store ; 
And by their prostituted use, 

A bastard progeny produce ? 

Does it their feelings mortify, 

That men may neither steal, nor lie ? 
That lives, and interests .of the poor, 
Are kept from violence secure; 

And that what all wopld wish to gain, 
None may clandestinely obtain? _ 
Does it to despotism: tend, 

That laws, society defend ?. 

That traitors, insurgents, and spies, 
Are barr’d by statutes peapeid wise ? 


* A religious sect in Bohemia, who held that. men retained 
their original innocence : they went naked, and had women m 
sommion. 


SHADE OF PLATO: 168 

Is that a project to assume, 
That points your race beyond the tomb ¢ 
That makes them, while they sojourn here, 
In paths of virtue persevere ? 
Do Christian principles, in fine, 
To aid despotic power, incline ; 
Or tend to overbearing sway; 
Where all such principles obey ? 

If these are systems to enslave, 
Philosophers may cea to rave ; 
And spare their sympathy and grace, 
For these will ever have a place : 
For though within a vicious state, 
Their strength and vigor may abate, 
Such state, declining more and more, 
Will soon their agency implore ; 
And mutual need, will plead the cause 
Of faith, and government, and laws. 

Or, if'a factious spirit tow’r, 
Above the reach of legal power, 
Order, and law, and virtue too; — 


Will leave the dissipated crew ; 
12 


104 . SHADE OF PLATO. 
And, to some distant lina iepalk; 
To breathe a more salubrious air 3. 
Where with their sacred influence shed, 
Freedom will soon her banner spread. 
States, of a once inferior size, 
Will on the list of empires rise ; 
While others, far advanced in age, 
Will make their exit from the stage, 

_ And with precipitance and haste, — 
Plunge in oblivion’s dreary waste. 

The heart of every man is prone 

To cherish passions of his own ; 
And yet as anxiously inclin’d, 
To have all but his own confin’d ; 
Thus discipline and slav’ry too, 
From selfish principles atcrue ; 
The first, self-interest does provide, 
To bound the rage of lust and pride ; - 
The last, by which your race are curst, 
Is but the product of this lust, 
And springs from mutual strife to be 


From all subordination free. 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Hence, these will both on earth remain, 
While there’s ambition to restrain ; 
And this will ever be the case, 
Till Heaven regenerates your race ; — 
Till the Great God, who reigns above, 


Diffuse more charity and love, 


And makes the hearts of men more prone 


To think each other’s good their own. 
Tho’ pride inhabits exes heels 

It can be partially supprest : 

Restraint, if furnish’d in its prime 

May check its progress for a time ; 

As streams that flow, with mod’rate force, 

Mav be retarded in their vires ; 

Yet pride, like streams that never fail, 

At length will o’er restraint prevail ; 

And onward to oppression tend, 

As rivers to the ocean bend ; 

Nor can all human art display’d, 

The cause, or consequence, evade. 
Hence. governments, in their career, 


Will yet through revolutions steer ; 


105 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Empires, upon this earthly ball, 
Will, in rotation, rise and fall, 
And human polity below, 
Will thro’ successive changes go. 
All well might new philosophy, 
Compose the agitated sea, 
And bound the progress of the wind, 
As change the nature of mankind ; 
Or make a jarring world, like this, 
Enjoy uninterrupted bliss, 

Then why, this purpose to obtain, 
Must so much blood be shed in vain ? 
Why must a rude, tumultuous band 
Disturb the peace of every land, 
And trample, with indignant spite, 
On civil and religious right ? 

Why should a disaffected crowd, 
Form’d of the covetous and proud, 
The ignorant, dissolute, and base, - 
And all the rabble of your race, 
Attempt, by rapine, fire, and sword, 


To have the rights of men restor’d.? 


‘SHADE OF PLATO. 
Does the late torrent of their rage, 
The mis’ries of mankind assuage ? 
Is freedom, which they would ensure;- 
More firm, extensive, or secure ? 
Has all ambition been outdone, © 
Where their renewing work begun er 
Has slav’ry and oppression fled, 


Since France struck off her royal head ; 


“10? 


Since priests (from whom their bondage sprung) 


Were drown’d, or guillotin’d, or hung ; 
And all their officers of state, 7 
Plung’d in a like disastrous fate ? 

Tho’ true, that this far distarit land, 
Was govern’d with a rig’rous hand, ~ 
And had, from ages long before; 

The galling yoke of bondage wore ; 


Yet has their struggle been the means: | 


Of introducing happier scenes ? 

Since this late bloody farce was play’d,: 
Does happiness their land pervade? 

- Has equal wealth, and freedem too, 
Leyvell’d all men the nation through ? 


~ 108 


_ SHADE GF PLATO. 
Are they ater to speak their mind, 
Ip matiers of a public kind ; — 

Or counteract ambitious strife, J 


‘Without a forfeiture of life ? 


‘Does there not o’er this wide domain, 


~ A military despot reign ; 


Who; solely to ambition prone, 

Has sprung from nothing to a throne ; 

Who, by base artifice employ’d, 

Has every social right destroy’d, 

And forg’d a more oppressive yoke, | 

Than what their revolution broke ? 
The greatest privilege they’ve gain’d, 

To recompence for loss sustain’d, 

Is, that the duty laid on crimes 1 

Is lighter than in former times. | 

This tribute (lately overcome) 

Was levied by the see of Rome ; 


~ 


Whose missionaries, long before, 


Had crimes of every sort in store ; 


Yet held them at a price so high, 


That many were too poor to buy : 


_ SHADE OF PLATO. 
And yet, by their religious creed, 
No one might do’an evil deed, 
Until for Hs respective vice, 
They paid the customary ack 
But, in their late regenerate day, 
This tax has all been done away ; 
Vice has been enaite enjoy’d, 
Since priests and churches were destroy’d. 
Those who enlisted in the cause, 
To pull down government and laws, 
And usher in their promis’d good, . 
Might perpetrate what crimes they would : 
Hence, in a mask of friendship furl’d, 
To liberate a groaning world, 
Their first experiments were tried, 
On states where freedom did preside 5 
And which (till by this band-annoy’d) 
Both peace and happiness enjoy’d, 
But mark, what horrors were display’d ; 
What heavy contributions dase ; 


What most exorbitant demands, 


Were wrench’d from these defenceless lands, 


109. 


i10 


SHADE OF PLATS. 
Top pay for their own . peace uttack’d, 
For rights invaded, cities sack’d, 
Churches polluted, and eras’d, 
And towns and villages defac’d ; 
For stores exhausted, to ss 
A band of ruffians, to extort 
The scanty pittance of the poor, - 
And rob the wealthy of their store: 
For insult, violence, and ayey 
Offer’d to infancy and age, 
And ali the sons of indigence 
Who needed succour and defence; 
For making wives and maidens, first 
Unwilling, prostitutes to lust, 
Then murdering with deliberate spite, 
Their sires and partners’ in their sight. 

Kere is a specimen, in brief, 

How nations have obtain’d relief 5. 
How dear they’ve paid this generous race, 
For their regenerating grace. 
Flow they (suspicious of no wrong) 


Were conjur’d by their syren song, 


SH ADE-OF PLATO. 1 

Till they did in their faith repose, 
To find protection from their foes. 
How they were by these friends. betray’d ; 
Their land a desolation: made ; 
Their country crimson’d o’er with blood ; 
Their houses rifled for.their, good ; 
Their daughters: ravish’d,; wives distain’d, 
And every social biessing drain’d. 

All this rude breach ‘of faith) anid laws; 
Was said to be in freedom’s-cause : 
To baffle superstition’s reign 5 - 
To break oppression’s. heavy chain; 
To place society once more. 
Above the grasp of lawless power 3 
To cause establishments, and thrones, 
(Beneath which, humannature groans) 
From their foundations to-be hurl’ds,, 
And banish slav’ry, from: the world. - 
And yet there’s searcely, been a:state, | - 
Which they .have.encroach’d upon:of late y 
That in this overbearing: ways, | 


Was govern’d with despotie sway. 
K 


112 


SHADE OF PLATO. 

Here, may a gazing world behold 
Th’ effects of freedom uncontrol’d ; 
Here is a true perspective glass, 

To see what tragic scenes would pass, 
If those, who thus at order rail, 
Were once permitted to prevail. 

Since then, this philosophic test 
Has prov’d to be a curse, at best ; 
Since this illuminated band 
Has ruin’d many a peaceful land ; 
Exhort the nations from their fate, 
To copy wisdom ere too late : , 


To eye, with ever jealous care, 


This late demoralizing snare ; 


This modern artifice, employ’d, 

To have all government destroy’d, 
And blot religion from your race, 

As big with horror and disgrace. 

Tell them, in such a world as this, 
That these restraints must both exist ; 
That public happiness, below, 


Can in no other channel flow ; 


SHADE OF PLATO. (113 
That men are form’d for social ends ; 
That each on others’ aid devende ; 
That gifts diverse, bestow’d on all, 
Make each have some important call : 
Nor matter what these gifts may be, 
Wealth, ease, or poverty, 
Or skill, economy, or wit, 
Each in their place, exactly fit ; 
And each, society to buoy, 
Must find occasion and employ : 
Some must the field of science trace, 
To teach the ign’rant of the race : 
Some must have treasures to bestow, 
For service from the poor and low ; 
Who in no other way; beside, 
Could, for thei own support provide, 
Some, to accommodate the rest, 
Of taste, for art, poe be possest ; 
Some must impose the civil lash, 
For many will with order clash. 
Some must, like Juvenal, engage, 


To brow beat scandal from the stage ; 


- 


1}4 


_ SHADE OF PLATS. 

And ere corruption takes a rise; 
Expose the specious garbs‘of vices 
Before they weaken wholesome laws, 
And thus betray the public cause. 
Some must have skill 'to penetrate, 
In the deep matters of the state 7 
And (spite of modern reason’s say) 
Must govern, while the*rest obeys 

And tell this late enlightened train, 
Their gracious purpose to restrain 5. 
And ere they for improvement roam, 
Employ their charity at home 
Tell them, if reason they attends 
This teaches, their own lives to renal gIS 
To probe from their own ‘bosoms first, 
Ambition, envy, hatred, lust; * 
And each regenerate one apiece ; 
This soon would make oppression cease. 
Were all the human race bests, ; 
To take this pattern for a guide, 
Tell them, it is by far, the best, 


To let this.cause of nations rest,» 


SHADE OF PLATO. 
Till the great overruling Soul, 
Who does the universe control, 
Sees fit, in his appointed way) 
‘To introduce 4 happier day 5 
When pride, that greatest human foe, 
Shall quit this hemisphere below 5 
When vices which now triamphant yeignsy 
Shall be in adamantine chains; * 
Freedom, 0’et all, its banner spread ‘ 
Discord, forever hide its head 3 
Havoc and war, and slaughter cease» 


And men have universal peace- 


115 


THE 
KNIGHT AND QUACK : 
’ OR, 
A LOOKING GLASS FOR IMPOSTORS, 
AN | 
PHYSIC, PHILOSOPHY, OR GOVERNMENT. 


AN 


ALLEGORICAL POEM. 


KNIGHT AND QUACK. 


Iy fancy’s everteeming pages, 
*Tis storied, how in latter ages 
There liv’d wpon the southern ‘shore: 
A ragged wretch, 
Who envied much 
The rich apparel which his betters “wore. 
Envy, and-hig¢h ambition, 
To be in their condition, ~~ 
Soon. maids the vagrant quit his humble fabours, 
To occupy the skill 
Of curing every Wi, 
With new invented pill. 
Which circulated round among his heighbours. 
Mean time, the Faculty, that medical Bare, 
Who’d warr’d with grim death till their heats were 
grown hoary, 
Now muster’d their forces the Quack to withstand, 
And thereby retarded his ‘progress to glory. 


120. _ * KNIGHT AND QUACK. 
But Fortune, that intriguing dame, 
Her timely aid bestows, . 
And granted hima lucky chance 
To rise above his fue : 
For, leaving hia abode, 
To travel on the road, 
He met, and thus addrest a man of wealth : 
“ Brave Knight, my skill reveals 
That death will trip your heals, 
Unless you doctor for your health,” 
Quoth the other (but little suspecting his trick) 
« You are no physician, I’m sure ; 
Or else, by your skill, you’d know who was sick, 
Before you advis’d them to cure. 
“Tn thinking me ill, your ignorance appears, . 
| For I no sickness feel, 
Nor have I scarcely lost a meal, 
For now, the last twelve years.” 
The Quack replied, “ thou’rt ill, ’tis vain to lie, 
To one possest of so much skill as I. 
I’ve scann’d the human frame from top to toe ; 


IT know each vein and fibre, how they grow ; 


KNIGHT AND QUACK. 

Can trace the movine’ cause of vital heat, 
And where diseases make their deadly seat : 
No fatal illness which mankind endure, 
But what I know some genial plant to cure. 

“ Nor are these all my arts, my skill is geod 
To purge out cancer humors from the blood. 
I dissipate the kernels from the toes ; 
Shake ere from the virgin’s chin or nose ; 
Cleanse out the optics, and renew the sight ; 
Scrub the dark skin of sorry maidens white ; 
Guard beauty from old Time’s relentless grip ; 
Make roses blossom on the’ faded lip ; 
Prepare perfumes to qualify the head ; 
Paint ladies’ faces either white or red ; 
Extermine warts, though strongly grafted in ; 
And brush disgusting freckles from the skin. - 

«“ Besides these arts, I’ve one that’s more refin’d: 
I’ve made a glass of a peculiar kind, — 
Which, when presented to the human sight, 
Will place all nature in its proper light. 
With this new aid, the genius of our race 


May circumscribe the boundless field of space, 


121 


122. ; | KNIGHT AND 7QUACK. 

And view the whole. arbation’s- vast methine; 

In the small compass of a pistareen. ~ . , 
“In botany, this glass has matchless worth 

T’ anatomize productions of the earth. 

By this, the sons of poverty, or wealth, 

Can read the secret magazine of health, 

And learn the name,.the nature, aud. the-use 

Of every herb, and plant, and bark, anc: juice, 

And spice, and balm,.that.bounteeus nature pleases, 

‘To strew in every, clime, to cure diseases, 

With such improvements. inthis mortal state, 

Mankind will learn to. live im spite of fate, . 

And, ere a cen’try from the. stage is, whirl’d, 

They’ll drive the King of Terrors from the. world. 
“The Chymist too will find a special aid 

In using this perspective I have made): . > 

On every fossil, while its in the stone, . | 

. Are characters to vuleaneyes, unknown, ; 

Which at their birth, in earliest days,-or later, 

Were epochs dated by; the pen, of nature.;. 

From these accounts thé pensppingseys may, quote . 


_ Enough to contradict what Moses wrote, 


KNIGHT AND QUACK, 123° 
And crush ‘ faith of superstitious tendence, 
On which deluded millions place dependence. 

a "Twas this new glass inspir’d me to presage, 
The mighty revolutions of the age. | 
Full fifty years this news I’ve been dispensing, 
That Saturn’s golden reign was recommencing ; 
That dead ere long, from fluctuations clear, 

e W ould introduce the blest perennial year ; 

And to our view that happy period bring, 

When nature travels in eternal spring 3 — 

When kings and priests, those tools of innovation, 

Will tumble down from their exalted: station ; 

- When taxes, toils, oppression, and disgrace, 

Will bid “ good by” tovall the human race ; 

And liberty, whose government is clever, 

Descend on earth to dwell with men forever. 

“ve pav’d the way for this auspicious time ; 

My glass has shone im each European clime ; 

| It scatter’d knowledge round the coast of France, 

Baffied delusion in its bold advance, ft 

Wounded oppression with a fatal shock, 


And brought the house of Bourbon to the block.’ 
L 


ia KNIGHT AND, QUACK. - 
Their vassals saw iinet in fetters bound, 
With churches, courts, and prisons, wall’d around ; 
Shock’d at the sight, their bondage now they know, 
And execrate the authors of dieir wo. | 
mae hypocrites, who, with a selfish view, 
Confin’d their passions, and their interest too, 
Were guillotin’d, or in the ocean hurl'd, « 
For thus imposing on an ignorant world. . 

“ My glass has shewn that nation out complete, 
That social order is a cursed cheat ; 
A craft deriv’d from some designing knave, 
Who grudg’d his race that freedom nature gave ; 
And that he might his fellowmen subdue, | 
Hung this dread bugbear up to public view, 
To slack their courage, and to make them skittish, 
Just as our gunboats terrify the British. 

“ But how this bugbear swell’d to such a size, 
Is one.mysterious thing, I can’t devise. 
If there’s a power above, as men presume, 
Why has it thus delay’d the tyrant’s doom ? 
And wherefore, suffer’d millions thus to groan, 


Beneath the scourges of the church and throne ? 


KNIGHT ‘has QUACK. 125 
Methinks, had I, but Pheton’s chance an hour 
To hold the reigns of universal power, 
Bs: Opprest humanity” should be redress’d : 
I'd sack old Tellus o’er from east to west : 
Monarchs and priests, who barter faith and laws, 
With all their dupes and knaves, who plead their cause, 
Tn one assembled concourse I would fix, 
And plunge them headlong inthe river Styx. 

‘« Yet, though the powers above do not see fit 
To overturn the:church and throne, as yet,’ 3 
The stedfast foes of government and laws, 

“Will not give out in such a righteous cause. 

The next expedient which we mean to hit on, 
Will be to quell the haughty power of Britian. 
Were but the legs of this Colossus broke, 

*T would be to tyrants a decisive abeciee: 

I’ve scatter’d round that land sufficient light,* 

To make the people scramble for their right ; 

And should propitious stars but aid the motion, 
We'll sink that cursed island in the ocean. - f 


* Mr. Paine, in a letter addrest to the citizens of America, 
says, that he sold five thousand copies of the “ Rights of 
Man” on the Island of Great Britain, 


126 ‘eure? AND QUACK. 
“ The task is done ; at least, my eyes behold, 
What a few os more of time unfold. 
His gracious majesty, Napelean first, 
Has undertook this all depo ktait trust : 
His thunderbolts against this kingdom hurl’d, 
‘Will blow a nest of hornets from the world ; 
And out of life, a band of seiine probe, 
That rifle half the commenxce of-the globe. 
“°Tis true this strife in which the world is blended, 
Mas not, as yet, turn’d out as I intended, : 
I set the pionters of my clock too fast ; 
The present war I thought would be the last ; 
And that the tumults on the eastern stage 
Would shower down freedom on the rising age; 
That Frenchmen; would, like Charon, undertake 
To pilot kingdoms o’er the stygian lake, 
And Jand our species onthat happy shore _ 
Where courts and laws would hamper them no more. 
Instead of this, the French just crown’d with freedom, 
Now yield themselves to have a tyrant lead ’em. 
The “useful labors” of Voltaire and Paine, . 


On this dull nation have been spent in vain ; 


And all the rays of this bright glass of mine, 

Are priz’d no more than jewels are by swine. 
The blood they’ve shed to be with freedom crown’d, 
Is lost like water die upon the ground. 

Her genius vanish’d like a morning dream, 

My hopes have burst like bubbles on a stream. 
Despotic power, which lately lost its head, 

Is now in terror rising from the dead. 

The ane scene of all this mighty fuss, 

To rescue human nature froma curse, 

And make the nations share theit promis’d boon, 
Turns out like Welchmen fishing for the moon. 

‘¢ But, tho’ the French, in battles which they fought, ~ 
Wasted their lives and substance for a groat, 
Atmericans will, for their rights, no doubt, | 
Be on their guard, and keep a good look out. - 
In this once dark and unenlightened land, 
Stern, rigid virtue held the upper hand: 
Mankind were drove by ministerial awe, 

To idolize religion and the law + 
But now we feel a transient gleam cf hope. t 


That men will give these prepossessions up. 
L 2 


‘KNIGHT AND QUACK. 127 


] 


128 KNIGHT. AND QUACK. 

My telescope, held up to public sight, | 

- Has fill’d this western hemisphere with light. 
The great reformers from the eastern sky, 

_ Are here invited by the pow’rs on high. 

We see the dawnings of a golden season 5. 
The Bible’s.barter’d for the Age of Reason : 
The Christian king, who bore cure rigid sway, 
Becomes the mated buffoon of the day : | 
His ministers, to compliment the age, 

Turn, like a weathercock, from saint to. sage, 
And Judas-like, betray their Sacred Master, 
To gain applause, and fill their pockets faster. 
_ We see of late full many a noble mind, 

Who scorns below the stars to be confin’d, 
Whose genius soars, infinity to trace, 

And sheds down pity on a grovelling race. . 
These sages from the vulgar herd withdraw ; 
_ They spurn the servile iecilin of the law, 

| And lately with an overbearing hand, _ 
Begin to root its influence from the land. 
Systems of rule, those Seiten of our nation, 


Are tumbling in the wreck of renovation 5 


KNIGHT AND QUACK. | # 129 
The foes of freedom all their wishes miss, 
And man seems verging to hig former bliss, 

*“ As these refinements spread the country through, 
We grow more libsral im our practice too. 
Customs and manners Mend at such a rate, 
Justice and jails are growing ut of date. 

Men soon may travel in the path of nature, 

In spite of wife, or priest, or legislator. 

The time was once, in days of lesser light, 
When law was constru’d as a sacred right ; 

And men could scarcely eat their wonted meals, 
But what they’d have @ sheriff at their heels : 

T hey’d spring this trap on every small offence ; 
- Men must be whipp’d for stealing eighteen pence ; 

And if familiar with each other’s wives, 

They kept the rogues in Bedlam all their lives. 

But times are better now ; for tis a fact, 

That men, whose deeds would then their lives contract, 
. Now, spite of law and government, survive, 

And on the favor of the public thrive. 

“ The reign of terror” is almost out of fashion ; 


’Tis glory now to foster every passion: 


1360 ® KNIGHT AND QUACK. | 

The murd’rer, traitor, and the debauchee, 

Are now deem’d virtuous in the first degree + 

Those who revile, corrupt, betray, or kill, 

Are now the organs of the: public will, 

Who rose to power upon their rivals’ merit, 

And thus their country’s confidence inherit. | 
“And this is right ; for if mankind agree 

That such a thing as government must be, 

It is, no doubt, a common stock affair, 

In which each individual has a share, 

And has undoubted right, in reason’s view, 

To share in ‘all the profits that accrue : 

If so, those men of independent spirit, 

Of honor, truth, and antiquated merit, 

Have had their chance to run the public race: 

Let them give back, and others tithe their place ; 

That every man, according to his wishes, 

May get his share among the loaves and fishes, 
«Merit is known by no decided test : 

Those characters throgtibed the world are best, 

Who walk through Jife pursuing nature’s road, 


And keep their coats.and conduct in the mode. 


KNIGHT AND QUACK. 
Virtue and vice are but imagin’d things, 
Hatch’d in the brains of ministers or kings ; 
In different countries, where discovery ranges, 
Chamelion-like, their size and colour changes ¢ 
A deed, call’d virtuous in a distant clime, | 
Would here, be thought a most notorious crime: 
Some nations speculate fe female beauty ; 
Others think suicide a sacred duty ; ) 
And others still, (if I am rightly told) 
Who kindly kill their parents when they’re old ; 
Each of tnese acts; if practised in our nation, 
Would all be crimes of highest aggravation 5 
Nor can we know, of all, who are the betters, 
Till men are free from governmental fetters : 
Till all are placed in uth ‘edoasé condition, 
That each can act his native disposition : 
Then will the deeds that most predominate, 


Be view'd as virtues of the highest rate. 


* Since then, the motives of the world, we see 


Respecting vice and virtue, disagree, 
How can one state exclusive right inherit 


To say what men have most intrinsic merit ? 


13) 


132 KNIGHT AND QUACK, 

Or why should law my deeds or conscience try 
When that’s as likely to be wrong as I? 

And were it right, my hfe is but a fraction 

In the great scale of intellectual action y 
Nor more affects the universal motion ~ 
Than grain of arsenic putrefies the ocean. 

As to my creed, the voice of reason owns © 
That that can never break my neighbor’s bones : 
Suppose the people round me all agree 

There’s twenty gods, or none, or One in Three, 
" And I should be so honest as to doubt it, 

Why need the public plague their heads about it? 
My neighbor does no disadvantage reap ; 

It does not rob him ofa moment’s sleep ; 

Nor does it cast a mist before his eyes ; 

Or kill his grain by frost, or Héssian flies ; 

Or (after all their conscientious prattle) 

Send some contagion to destroy his cattle. © 

“ Nor should I take the liberty from hence 

To burn his barns, his houses, or his fence ; 

Or undertake his ox or cow to kill ; 


“ 


Or cuckold him against his lady’s will ; 


~~ «xBNIGHT AND QUACK, 
Or think on this account, I'd better right 
To steal his goods or money in the night ; 
Tf none of these disasters happen to him, 
Pray tell what dreadful injury can it do him. 

“ Nor is a such a flagrant aren of duty, 
To gratify myself with love and beauty. 
Suppose I harbor and acunent a Miss, 

Where is the mighty harm in doing this? © 

It does not “ break” an individuals “ leg-;” 
Nor does it make “ the mouth of labor” beg ; 
Nor does it smite the nation with a curse 5 

Or sponge a farthing from the public purse: 

If I on Hymen’s institution trample, 

No ah oblig’d to follow my example, 

So long as I don’t take it in my head ‘ 
To crowd out husbands from the marriage bed ; 
From implication they may let me go ;> 

They may be modest, and as chaste as snow; 
And hug the chains of wedlock if they please; 
Vl not be hamstrung with such cords as these ; 
Nor, by the law, be made a passive minion, 


While there’s a woman that’s of my opinion. 


138 


134 | KNIGHT AND QUACK. 

In short, Pll keep:a mistress during life : 

She’s more accommodating than a wife: 
‘She don’t presume upon connubial ties, 

On pleasing me, her whole dependence lies : 
And when she seeks my happiness to smoother, 
I’ve power to turn her off, aid take. another. 
Like wives, she’s not excessive fond of pow’r,; 
Nor jealous, if I’m out-of sight an hour ; 

Nor does my miss, while viewing other faces, ~ 
E’en grudge me life to come at their embraces. 
She seeks to please me more for love than riches ; 
She never wears my pantaloons or breeches ; 
Nor does she try to plunge me into: debt: 

She knows she has not got me in her net’; 

And ’tis this knowledge that confines her pride, 
She sticks to me as tight as one:that’s: tied); 
And I frem nicest sentiments of honor, 
Maintain the offspring” 1 sheget upon her :. 
Since both are:then so bifhidsomnély protected; 
Why need the public mind be: disaffected ? 

“ Respecting tribe, or color, I agree, 
That black or white, are:both alike to mes - 


‘ 


s 


KNIGHT AND QUACK. 135 
AN ovaets or high, or lew, or rich, or poor, 
Of Osage tribe, or Hottentot, or Moor; 
Of black, or white, or coppercolour’d face, 
They all are welcome to the last embrace ; 
And spite of ise or custom, or complexion, 
Have all an equal share in my affection, 
“ Why, by distinction, are our species curst ? 
All had the same progenitors at first: 
Nature alike, to all our race bestows, 
Head, feet, and hands, and eyes, and ears, and nose ; 
Each tribe, and colour; all of every nation; 
Wire propagated first by procreation ; 
And tho’ there’s white and black, and great and small, 
Yet meat and drink, as sii supports them all. 
In this enlighten’d; comprehensive View, 
We allare brethren, and we’re sisters too : 
The individuals, which our globe encloses, 
One universal family composes : 
Tn parts and passions all are made complete : 
Then where’s the rallying point of selfcanceit ? 
And how in nature is it just and right, 


. That some should fel so proud because they’re white. 
M . ; & 


~~ 


~ 


13 


Lor 


KNIGHT AND QUACK. 
And think it will their consequence degrade 
To be connected with a tawny maid. 
“ The different species of inferior creatures,” 

Take no disgust at Déle?, tribe or features. 

The buck, the rabbit, the swallow, swan sitet dove, 
All have free access to the joys of love ; 

And give their “ energies” a thorough trial, 
Unchain’d by mode, or taste, or selfdenial : 

But Englishmen, a race of stupid elves, 

Are more unnatural than the brutes themselves ; 
And fain would rob each maiden of her right, 
Who'd not like them, the fortune to be white. 

“To speak my mind, that matrimonial fence 

Confines the passions, enervates the sense, 
Quenches the flames that love and beauty kindle, 
And makes the vigour of our specics dwindle. 
How many hapless males, atid tethades too, 

Are doom’d to walk life’s destin’d journey through, 
With an unfruitful partner for a mate, cifeb ate 
And never rear a subject for the state. 
Had such been free from these connubial checks, 


And ranged the circle of the other sex, 


> 


KNIGHT AND QUACK. —- 137 

They might some lucky accident embrace 
To be the parents of a numerous race. 

“On this account, I like the Spartan mode : 
Praises on the adultress wake bestow’d : 
Their women. with this privilege were clad, 
To choose new sires for every child they had, 
Love, there was fed and cherish’d, not confin’d.; 
They’d stated dances of an amorous kind, 
In which both sexes stript from head to hams, 
And frolick’d naked like a flock of lambs.* 
But now, our your youth that in assemblies meet, 
Must all be muffled up, from heac to feet. 
A mode, alas ! now circulates around, 
To harness virtue in a muslin gown ; 
To have the limbs in lace and cambrick tied ; 
And then the art of Cupid is defied. 

“I now, to your disease must traverse back: + 
I find your nature’s strangely gone to wreck ; 


* Plutrarch’s life of Lycurgus. 


Tt What remains of this Poem, more especially alludes to the 
manner in which political quacks have endeavoured to impose on — 
the public, viz. by cajolling them with a belief that their late 
rulers were oppressors, and by promising to alleviate their bur- 
dens if they could be entrusted with the powers of government. 


{$8 KNIGHT AND QUACK. 
And now must tell you, Sir, with your permission, 
That you are unappriz’d of your condition. 

You say you're well; you truly so may seem ; 
But this idea ’s baseless as a dream : 

You’ ve been, for years, baitath the doctor’s care, 
And still you’re ignorant of the whole affair. 

But know, ere twelve years past, to tell you true, 
{Soon afteg your minority was through) 

You had the spleen at an unusual rate: 

You thought yourself in a declining state : 

Which thought of all reality was void. 

You then had health, which since you’ve not enjoy’d. 
Still you must have the Faeulty’s advice: | 

¢ hy enquire of quacks, you had a taste too nice,) 
Who, for their own epabordiint and. ease, 

Out of your whims wrought up a high disease, 
And turn’d your fancied into serious ills, 

To have a better market for their pills. 

«“ As money was their aim, their sole debate 


Was how to gain your treasure and estate. 


The experiment has been tried, but we do not realize the sal- 
utary effects which we expected, their ambition has been grat 
ified, but the public mre not — the benefits which they 
promised. 


KNIGHT AND QUACK. | 139 
Should hey directly your disorder heal, 
There’d be no profit in such honest deal + 
Or should they take your life from you outright ; 
For poor men, this would do; but for a knight 
W ho’d such exhiatiens stores to reimburse, . 
A step so rash, would prove as greatacurse, —s 
And stop their sweet communion with your purse. | 

« At last they leagued this measure to pursue 3; 

To prop. your life and your disorder too ; 

To have them both in such due limits pent, 

That each might last till all your wealth was spent ; 
Then, if you must the debt of nature pay, 

They’d place no more obstructions in the way. 

“ To bring your case to this Matingitaha mark , 
They gave you mercury and Peruvian bark : | 
Pretending with a hypocritic face, 

That nothing else would benefit your case : 

That you were in a desperate sitiiation : 

That desperate means must be your preservation : 
That if this medicine you refus’d to try, | 
In spite of fate, you certainly must die: 


$40 KNIGNT AND QUACK. 
And if you did they thought your chance was small ; » 
But then your lot upon this chance might fall, 

And hit perhaps the last alternative 

That nature could provide to make you live: 

“ But as it turn’d it did not kill or heal: 

It only serv’d to whet your sense to feel: 

Your joints, and nerves brac’d up to highest stra 
FilPd all your members with exquisite pain : 

The fever that inflam’d your blood before, 

Was nourish’d up and made to rage the more; 

Tn short, it prov’d . mercenary scheme, 

To qualify for sickness more extreme. 

kk Finding to mercury you became averse, 

‘They then contriv’d a more ingenious farce ; 

Api as you would not take their antidote, 

They undertook to cram it down your throat : 

‘But you had too much strength to be control’d 

Until they brib’d assistance by their gold, 

Which when acquir’d, as soon as they could do’t, 
With chains and cords they bound you hand and foot : 
Wor yet did this confinement make you tame ; 


They had at last to scarify your frame, 


KNIGHT AND QUACK. lat 
And from your body half your blood to driil, 
Ere res: could be subservient to their will. 
“ Fearing, because you long continued ill, 
That you would grow suspicious of their skill * 
And fearing too, some sudden flush of pain 
Might make you struggle till you broke your chein, 
They thought to stop such accidents as these 
By cramming opium down to give you ease ; 
To make you stupid, and your sense destroy ; 
Then they could keep unknown in your employ ; 
And if their bill should chance to. be too large, 
You'd be too ignorant to dispute the charge. 
“ Thus you may sec how plain this truth appears, 
That you have been Senta upon for years ; 
And that professors of the dose and pill, 
After declaiming largely on their skill ; 
And how they cure by neverfailing rules, 
Compar’d to me, they’re all a pack of fools: 
And yet my bill for phasic repairs, 
‘Ts nothing in comparison to theirs. 
To tell the truth, for physic and advice, 


They’ve made you pay a most enormous price. . 


142 KNIGHT AND: QUACK, (— 
Their opiates, caustics, purges, pills and pukes, 
Mix’d with their borrow’d skill from ancient books, 
Which you long since in this intriguing way 
Have been subjected to from day to day, 
Amounts to more, by calculations clear, 

Than all the income of your wealth a year, 

Lo! whata figard of Sraperty you’ve lost : 
You’d better died at first and sav’d the cost ; 

For after all your care and fruitless strife, 

To mend your shatter’d tenement of life, 

And be of health and vigor repossest, 

You’re but a moving monument at best : 

You hear, and talk, but how; T cannot tell ; 
You neither see aright, nor taste, nor smell : 

In sation, you'he little better now than dead ; 
Intestine worms have in your bowels bred ; 

And this the reason why your stomach’s good, 

It has to find these cankering reptiles food, 
Which crave more bread, and meat, and applejuic:, 
Than you have power to swallow for their use : 
And these will prove your ruin, without doubt, 


Unless you grant me leave to purge them out.» 


~ 


‘ 


KNIGHT AND QUACK, 
Now, if l’ve lied in telling how your case is, 
Look in this glass and see how pale your face is.” 
The unbeliever view’d, and with surprise, 
Saw fogs and darkness scatter from his eyes, 
The treacherous mirror, though it could not speak, 
Diffused a mortal paleness o’er his cheek. 
At which dire yiew, his former visage changed : 
His once strong limbs, like king Bolshazzav's jar: 
His strength relax’d, his senses were deranged, 
And fate seem’d rolling on her sable car. 
As drowning men, to bear their bodies up; 
Seize sticks and leaves, that on the waters glide ; 
So the poor Knight, depriv’d of every hope, 
To the Impostor for assistance cried : 
“Your words were true, which I supposed a cheat ; 
Your skill is matchless, fraught with no conceit ; 
I own I was an inconsiderate elf: 
You knew my weakness better than myself, 
And kindly have expos’d it to my eyes: 
Now try your skill before your suppliant dies.” 
The Quack, now flush’d with joy at such success, 


Thus to his patient did himself express : 


143 


144 KNIGHT AND. QUACK. 

“You well may thank me for my skill display’d: 

I’ve made you know you're sick, and need my aid ; 

While half the world in stupid mazes tread, 

And scarcely know they’re ill, till they are dead : 

Which had they but your chance, before too late, 

Might mend their healths, and shun impending fate. 
“ O had I lived on earth when time began; 

Ere dive distempers first assaulted man 3. 

Their baleful influence from the world I’d probe, - 

Nor let them. make such-hayoc round the globe. 
“But I am doom’d to unpropitious days : 

Curst by proud learning’s ostentatious rays : 

That ancient phalanx i renown’d physicians, 

With lawyers, poets, priestss and politicians, 

All mock my strife, a dying racé to save, 

And dub meoff a vile imposing knave. 

I’m too unpopular for modern taste : 

And yet, what wealth a dainty public waste 

On idle fops, whose only science lies, 

In peddling jalap,,bark, and Spanish flies, 

With other. poisons which their patients kill, 

And then ask compound interest for their skill. 


KNIGHT AND QUACK. d 145 

_ & Far different my prolific means to heal : 
I to my native soil for health appeal : 
By nature’s light I search for drugs at home, 
Nor ransack Asia o’er for spice and gum, » 
This dose, to heal the illness you endure, 
From swamps and meadows, I did first procure : 
’Tis no mysterious nostrum, ’tis design’d 
To be of general use to all mankind : 
oe . precious lifeinvigorating pill ; 
A sure and certain cure for every ill ; os 
Compos’d of roots, and herbs, and bark of trees, 
With many more as simple things as these, iS 
To banish pain and give the patient ease. | 

-“ Better by far than salivation, | 

That curst mercurial preparation, | 
Which Hypocrates invented ; i : 

Whose scholars to their patients since, 

' For a catholicon dispénbe; | 
Whether with dropsy, worms, or gout tormented.” 
The Knight, for his ill, 


Soon swallow’d the pill, 


146 KNIGHT AND QUACK, 
Expecting *twould shortly subdue it ; 
But soon a stupor seized his brit 
His blood recoil’d in every vein, 
And he, deprived of sense or pain, 
Launch’d out.of life, and scarcely knew it. 
Then to a numerous crowd; 
That to the place repair, 
The Qnack replied, 
“ My patient died, 
But that is nothing rare « 
For, till these modern times, 
Mankind, both small aiid great, 
Tn this, and other climes, 
"Have bow’d to conquering fate : 
“ But had he applied, | 
And my medicine tried : 
But one week before, I dare to engage 
*T would have lengthen’d his life to Methuselah’s age.” 
This artful excuse, 
The crowd did seduce ; 
All thought that no doctor had skill so profuse : 
They quit old Greek and Latin rules, 


KNIGHT AND QUACK. 
Echoed his skill from clime to clime, 
Shouted his praise in prose and rhyme, 
This was a doctor for the time, 
And all the Faculty were fools. 
But spite of his earnest endeavor, 
Men’s souls and their bodies would sever : 
Mortality’s rage 
He could not assuage, 
With all his medical lore : 
His former laurels now decay, 
And all his patrons of the day, 
Push on to death as short a way; 


As men had done before. 


147 


THE 


SUBTLETY OF FOXES. 
A, FABLE. ° 


SUBTLETY OF FOXES. 
coat 
Iw ancient days, (as poets teach) 
When brutes possest the gift of Speech ; 
Beneath a tow’ring ledge of rocks 
There dwelt an old insidious Fox, 
Who, by his subtlety and skill, 
Could gather vermin at his will, 
And make large quantities, for game, 
Of brutal creatures, wild and tame ; 
With force of instinct overpower’d 
Flock to his hole to be devour’d. 
‘ Soon as this Fox’s skill profound 
Was known amongst the other’s round, 
One who had lately come ofage, 
(Yo fit him for life’s future stage) 
"Besought this old experienc’d wight, 
To learn him his mysterious slight ; 
Who said, “ my friend, the craft you mentiop, — 


Requii’d- much study and attention : 
N2- 


152 | 


SUBTLETY OF FOXES. 


Pve therefore made it my intent 


- To fix a lasting precedent, 


‘That those who learn my art sublime, 


Shall be my servants three years time,” 
And for their board and Leigmting pay 
The price of one racoon a day. 

Thus will the science which I teach, 
Be plac’d above the common reach, 
Since few within our hemisphere, 
Would choose to purchase wit’so dear. 
This practice will the hopes beguile, : 
Of quacks who dread fatigue and toil, 


And strive to beara lighter part 


' By stealing my ingenious art. 


Hence, will my pupils rise thereby, 
To elevated ranks on high, 

And this new art which I have found, 
Which leads to honor and renown ;- 
Be kept secure by learned sages, 
And handed down to future ages. 
For when ’tis storied thro’ the land, 


What wiles my scholars understand, 


SUBTLETY OF FOXES. 153 

Before such learned heads as those, 
They ’ll fear their ignorance to expose. 

«“ Think not” said he, “ these terms are hard, 
Which bring you such a rich reward : 
For tho’ this proverb none disputes, 
That we know more than other brutes, 
Yet few of all our species yet, 
Have made their fortunes by their wit. 
The greatest part, tis understood, 
From paw to mouth obtain their food : 
There ’s-some, tis true, with sordid aim, 
Who constantly pursue the game ; 
And search the fields and forests o’er; 
Perhaps have gain’d a trifle more : 
And now and then we see a case, 
Where few of our intriguing race, 
Have chanc’d by some notorious cheat 
To gain exhaustless stores of meat, 
Enough to last them all their lives, 
With all their offspring that survives. ‘ 
But I have found a surer way ; 


My store increases every day ; 


154 


SUBTLETY OF FOXES. 


The flesh with which my board is crown’d, 


Comes in from every quarter round. 
°Tis true, that when I fake begun, 
Like other Foxes, I niust ruf, | 
And chase the animals about, 

Till they were fairly worried out; 


But then I’d-drag them to my door, 


’ And save a part to bait fer more ; 


This done,-I thought, instead of running, 
*Twas best to exercise my cunning ; 
For which, I presently devis’d | 

A trap, which was with food disguis’d ; 
And from the eye secreted thorough 
But little distance from my borough ; 
To which the simple brutes repair’dy 
And to their sorrow were ensnar’d ; 

By sack a policy, ne doubt, 


Most of the beasts and fowls about, 


Which dwell within a league of me, 


(If Jove’s immutable decree, : 
But spares my life, which each begrutches) 


Will shorily be within my clutches ; 


SUBTLETY OF FOXES, tes 

And I shall have the joy to see 
How great a tyrant I can be.” 

When Reynard for his art sublime, 
Had serv’d the stipulated time, 
He, from his master’s hole, did start 
To try the virtue of his art ; 
And, as he little game could find, 
He thus reflected in his mind : 
“In me, *twould be a project vain, 
To think a livelihood to gain ; 
There, where my tutor and his brother | 
Are quite enough, without another, 
To lick up all the food that’s found, 
In all the neighborhood around.” 
This said, he from a station flew, 
To a distant forest, out of view A 
Where scarce a brute from days of yore 
Had heard the name of Fox before ; 
And there, with most industrious strife, 
' Young Reynard dug his hole for life. 

As he upon a certain day, 
‘Travell’d abroad to beet for prey 3 


156 < SUBTLETY OF FOXES. 
The creatures timely did espy 

Mischief apparent in his eye ; 
And as hé rang’d the forest through, 
Each kept his distance from the foe.» 
At length, much to his joy, he found 
Two Ganders fighting in a pound ; 
And as he did himself expose, 
One told him wHence the quarrel rose : 
“ This rogue” said he, “ of cursed brood 
Has done me all the hurt he could ; | 
One sieht! when I was in my sleep, 
He softly to my nest did creep, 4 
And us’d each method in his power, 
My biti offspring to adiods: 
And then, with most invet’rate hate, 
He strove to rob me of my mate.” 

“ Enough,” the subtle Fox, replied, 
“ You ’ve law and justice on your side} 
For none of all your race, I’m sure, 
Would such base injuries endure, 
Or suffer treatment so forlorn, 


Now give me but an ear of corn, © 


= 


SUBTLETY OF @ORES, 187 

And to your rival let me.in ;. : 
We'll strip the rascal to the ite is OEE 3 3 
Nor leave the mischiefmaking quack, 
A single feather to his back.” 

The Fox, (who did his honor pledge) 
Was introdue’d avithin the hedge, .. 
And did the vile aggressor beat, 
Till he lay_lifeless at his feet ; 
Then threw aside his friendly cloak, 
And fltus to his employer spoke : 
“ You see how my avenging arm, 
Has succour’d you from fatal harm, 
And by a welldirected blow, 
Has now reliev’d you from your foe: , 
For this I did a wifle ask, 
Supposing ’twas an casy task ; 
And that this knaye who hatch’d the breeze, 
Could be subdu’d with greater ease F 7 
But soon I found myself mistaken, ~ 
I'd much ado to,save my bacon; .... >” 
To keep my word of promise, true, 


I’ve put my life at stake for you,, 


158 SUBTLETY OF FOXES. 

And, with the pity of a friend, 
: Have sav’d you from a wretched end ; 
And now, tis just and right you see, 
That you should yield your life to me.” 
The Gander finding he was tied, 
He to the iranee thus replied: 
“ Since s your guile you’ve won the field, 
You've got the power, and I must yield ; 
But then that pity which you call, | 
To me, has been no benefit at all; 
*T were better far, if I alone, 
My enemy had overthrown 3 
Or, if I had not conquer’d him, 
To have lest an eye, or lost a limb, 
Would not have such a ghastly view, 
As now to lose my life by you ; 
Besides, if worst must come to worst, 
And you do for my carcase lust, 
I’d choose an open foe to slay mey 
Before a wretch who would betray me. 
_ You say your task was hard to do ; 


Whether your words are false, or true, 


SuDTLETY OF FOXES, 

- I do not know, nor dof care D, 

This iiuck I know, you promis’d fair ; 
And but for sucha faithless speech, 


T had not come within your reach.” | 


«“ Charges, so. high,” the Fox’ replies: 


« From one who at my mercy lies, 
I could with. greater patience bear, 
If they with justice would compare : 
You call me treach’rous, this | owm) 
But if | am). Pm: not alone’: 

Most creatures of the earthy, or air, 

If they of strength, or cunning sharé, 
And have a chance these gifts to try): 
Will play the rogue; as’ well as I. 


I, the serpent: with enchanting note, 


Draw birds and reptiles: down my throat : | 


Thus, pigeons; doves, and other fowls, 
Are often sacrifie'd by owlsy: 

Barely because this bitdof preys.” 

Is blest with better-eyes: than they’: 
And‘ men, those beings that pretend 
All righteous. rules, to comprehendy - 


oO. 


162 


SURTLE TY OF FOXES. 
Or need your subtlety, or aid, — 
To rule the universe they’ve made. 


They’ve scatter’d with benignant hand, 


Both fruit and herbage round the Jand, . 


Which many a brute for food procures, 
Whose life is Worth as much yours: 
Why thends there afatal need, — 

That I and other fowls: must bleed, 

To form a more delicious bites . | 
To glut your savage appetite? 

Yet if these arguments are vain, 

And I must by your teeth be slain, 
Know this, vile wretch, for all your art, 
Heaven will my injur’d cause assert 5 


The insulted majesty of Jove, 


- Will rend the canopy above, 


And on his humble footstool light, 

To set a jarring world to vight : 

Then will his justice disapplaud, 

This act of violence and fraud 5 

And though I how am doom’d to bleed, 
He surely will avenge the deed.” 


SUBTLETY OF FOXES. | 163 
“ Hold, this‘base railing,” cried the Fox, 
“You might as well dissolve the rocks, 
As to divert me from my scheme, 
By telling me this pious dream. 
Think you the gods will find a cause, 
To countermand :their former laws, 
And punish those an future wrath, 
Who here have ‘follow’d nature’s path ; 
Nature that sure and certain guide, 
Did me with claws and teeth provide, 
That I should you to pieces rend, 
And I'll improve them to that end. 
But you, in nature’s ample fram@, 
Are scarcely worthy of a name 3 
It matters not if you're opprest ; 
Your but a plebian at the best ; 
Each one of your insipid brood, 
Were propagated but for food ; 
And were I such a simple dunce, 
As now to let you pass for once ; ; 
And free you from this bitter cup, ; 


Some other Fox would eat you up; 


5 


ADVERTISEMENT- ~ 


These engravings were executed and revised under 

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_ From the peculiar taste and distinct talents of these 
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auspices. Perhaps no work, containing an equal num- 
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‘Orders for the above work from booksellers,.or private 
gentlemen, are solicited, and shal] receive prompt atten- 
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—~ALSO— 
ROLLIN’S ANCIENT HISTORY. 


Tn eight volumes Octavo, to be illustrated with sever&l 
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Of the numerous works that are constantly issuing. 
from: the Evropean and American presses, perhaps no’ 
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andits principles inculcated.than ROLLIN’S ANCIENT 
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ed ‘rank as a pleasing historian, is scarcely surpassed, in 
blending, in a masterly manner, moral sentiments with’ 
historical facts ; and although his his'ory was designed’ 
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it richly merits a place in every social or private library. 


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